Estudio descriptivo y valoración del gasto energético en actividades militares de combate simulado

Son escasos los estudios que analizan poblaciones físicamente activas como la militar. Además en el ejército español no se ha realizado este tipo de estudio en el que se simula la realización de un combate con todo el equipo. Por otra parte, la incorporación de la mujera a las Fuerzas Armadas, el nuevo carácter profesional de la tropa y la participación de nuestro ejército en conflictos internacionales obliga a un conocimiento más profundo del grado de enfrentamiento físico de nuestros soldados. Por todo ello se propone como objetivo final: Aportar un mayor grado de conocimiento sobre el esfuerzo de tales maniobras que suponen un éxito profesional y vital, para así contribuir a la mejora de la misma de acuerdo a los dispuesto en el artículo 44 de la Reales Ordenanzas para las Fuerzas Armadas que sobre la forma física del personal militar dice: ".. Es necesario una adecuada preparación física que le permita cumplir sus misiones con la bebida competencia y actuar con eficacia en el combate". Utilizando una muestra de 27 soldados profesionales (19 varones y 8 mujeres) destinados en la Brigada de Infantería Mecanizada Córdoba X con sede en Centro Muriano (Córdoba), se lleva a cabo un estudio cineantropométrico, y una prueba de esfuerzo máxima en tapiz. Una semana más tarde se realiza una prueba en tapiz con la ropa de instrucción, el equipo de combate y el armamento (Peso del equipo completo: 26.170 kg) simulando una maniobra de combate de una compañía de infantería ligera en su fase de aproximación desde los 1500 metros hasta la línea de fuego enemigo. Analizando los resultados podemos resaltar que la capacidad de trabajo físico del soldado presenta un valor medio de 51.1 ml/kg/min coincidiendo con el encontrado en la mayoría de estudios realizados con poblaciones militares. Se confirma que la muestra estudiada presenta una buena capacidad aeróbica a pesar de que se encontraban en una fase sedentaria desarrollando tareas militares en el acuartelamiento y sin tratamiento específico, en un período a una fase de campaña de 6 meses de duración (guerra de Bosnia).En función del sexo los parámetros ergoespirométricos alcanzan valores más altos en los soldados masculinos a excepción de la FC que durante las fases 2,3 y 4 alcanzan cifras superiores en los soldados femeninos, posiblemente relacionados con la influencia del peso del equipo sobre una población con un peso graso mucho más elevado. Sería necesario realizar un entrenamiento adecuado en función del sexo que permita mantener una igualdad en la condición física de los soldados y poder ejecutar las acciones del combate de forma homogénea y precisa. Por tanto comparando los parámetros cardiorespiratorios y metabólicos durante las cuatro fases de la maniobra protocolizada, se produce un claro aumento en las tres primeras fases (en relación con la intensidad del esfuerzo) y una disminución en la fase 4 relacionada con la falta de recuperación y la fatiga progresiva. Por todo ello se considera de gran importancia: A,- Modificar este protocolo, ya sea acortando las distancias de las series o aumentando el tiempo de recuperación entre ellas, para facilitar una reducción de la fatiga que permita al soldado llegar a las posiciones enemigas donde se producirá el combate cuerpo a cuerpo, en las mejores condiciones fisiológicas posibles. B,- O mejorar la preparación física en base a programas de entrenamiento que aumenten la capacidad aeróbica y la fuerza y resistencia muscular para transportar el equipo de combate de 26 kg.1320731

Efectos sobre la composición corporal y la densidad mineral ósea de un programa de altitud simulada en triatletas

Introduction: body composition is an important factor to improve athletic performance. Futhermore, bone mineral density informs about the bone stiffness of the skeletal system. Objective: the aim of the present research was to analyze modifications on body composition and bone mineral density parameters after a seven week intermittent hypoxia training (IHT) program. Methods: eighteen male trained triathletes were divided in two groups: an intermittent hypoxia training group (GIHT: n: 9; 26.0 ± 6.7 years; 173.3 ± 5.9 cm; 66.4 ± 5.9 kg; VO2  max: 59.5  ±  5.0 ml/kg/min) that conducted a normoxic training plus an IHT and a control group (GC: n: 9; 29.3 ± 6.8 years; 174.9 ± 4.6 cm; 59.7 ± 6.8 kg; VO2 max: 58.9 ± 4.5 ml/kg/min) that performed only a normoxic training. Training process was standardized across the two groups. The IHT program consisted on two 60 minutes sessions per week at intensities over the anaerobic threshold and atmospheric conditions between 14.5 and 15% FiO2. Results: Before and after the seven week training, body composition and bone mineral density were analyzed. After this training program, the GIHT showed lower values in free fat mass in upper limbs and fat mass in lower limbs (p < 0.05) than before the program. In terms of bone mineral density variables, between the two groups no changes were found. Conclusion: the addition of an IHT program to normoxic training caused an improvement in body composition parameters compared to similar training under normoxic conditions.Actividad Física y Deport

Developing Efficient Discrete Simulations on Multicore and GPU Architectures

In this paper we show how to efficiently implement parallel discrete simulations on multicoreandGPUarchitecturesthrougharealexampleofanapplication: acellularautomatamodel of laser dynamics. We describe the techniques employed to build and optimize the implementations using OpenMP and CUDA frameworks. We have evaluated the performance on two different hardware platforms that represent different target market segments: high-end platforms for scientific computing, using an Intel Xeon Platinum 8259CL server with 48 cores, and also an NVIDIA Tesla V100GPU,bothrunningonAmazonWebServer(AWS)Cloud;and on a consumer-oriented platform, using an Intel Core i9 9900k CPU and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 TI GPU. Performance results were compared and analyzed in detail. We show that excellent performance and scalability can be obtained in both platforms, and we extract some important issues that imply a performance degradation for them. We also found that current multicore CPUs with large core numbers can bring a performance very near to that of GPUs, and even identical in some cases.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de España (MINECO), and the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) of Spain, cofinanced by FEDER funds (EU) TIN2017-89842

A generalization of path following for mobile robots

Several authors have proposed some methods for applying path following in specific cases to mobile robots. When we try to extend the path following approach to the general problem several difficulties arise. We present a generalized technique to apply path following to a mobile robot with nonholonomic constraints. As an application example, we expose the case of mobile robots with a higher degree of manoeuvrability than the typical car-like robots. In particular we consider a robot that can turn around itself making a zero-radius turn; a case still not resolved as far as we know. Finally we propose a suitable control law for this example that ensures asymptotical convergence.Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología TER96-2056-C02-0

Chrono-Scheduling; a simplified dynamic scheduling algorithm for timing predictable processors

We propose a simpler and latency-reduced instruction scheduler, called chronoscheduling algorithm, which avoids large and difficult instruction wake-up in order to reduce power consumption and latencies. The key idea of this scheduler is to extract and record all possible information about the future execution of an instruction during its issue, so as not to look for this information again and again during wait stages at the reservation stations. Therefore, an instruction can be issued with the information about at what cycle its operands must be captured and when it must be executed. The first implementation is targeted to processors that have constant latencies like many embedded microcontrollers, most vector processors without data cache, etc. Its main advantages are: no tags, no renaming, and much simpler waiting stations. When compared with classical dynamic schedulers, chrono-scheduling provides approximately the same CPI but with simpler overall circuitry and presumably higher clock speed (mainly because of its simplified stations).Ministerio de Ciencia y Educación TIN2006-15617-C03-03Junta de Andalucía P06-TIC-0229

A Path Following Control for Unicycle Robots

In this work we present a new path following control for unicycle robots that is applicable for almost all the possible desired paths and whose analysis is very straightforward. First we select the path following method that consists of two steps: choosing a ‘‘projection’’ that relates the actual posture to the desired path and imposing a ‘‘motion exigency’’ to ensure that the robot advances. A ‘‘projection’’ that considers all the error coordinates is selected and closed equations are obtained for it. The uniqueness projection is carefully analyzed and a necessary and sufficient condition is also presented. This condition shows that a slight bound on the curvature derivative of desired paths must be imposed to preserve uniqueness. It is remarkable that the selected path following is applicable for paths containing zero-radius turns, a problem that has never been resolved as far as we know. In addition, an asymptotically stable control law is found using the closed form equation of the proposed path following and the second Lyapunov method. Finally, we show the behavior of the path following and the control law through several simulated and experimental results, using a computerized wheelchair built at our research facility.Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología TER96-2056-C02-0

A common framework for the robust design of tuned mass damper techniques to mitigate pedestrian-induced vibrations in lively footbridges

The dynamic response of modern slender footbridges is usually sensitive to both the pedestrian actions and the uncertainties associated with their inherent structural behavior. Thus, tuned mass dampers have been widely integrated in the design of these structures to guarantee the fulfillment of the vibration serviceability limit state during their overall life cycle. Three different techniques of tuned mass dampers (active, semi-active and passive) are usually considered for this purpose. Although there are algorithms for the robust design of each particular technique, however, this specificity makes difficult the implementation of all these techniques in practical en gineering applications. Herein, the motion-based design method under uncertainty conditions is proposed and further implemented to create a common framework for the robust design of all these techniques when they are employed to mitigate pedestrian-induced vibrations in slender footbridges. According to this method, the design problem may be transformed into the combination of two sequential sub-problems: (i) a reliability multi objective optimization sub-problem; and (ii) a decision-making sub-problem. Subsequently, the performance of this proposal has been validated through a numerical case study in which the dynamic response of a steel footbridge has been controlled by three different tuned mass damper techniques designed according to the proposed common framework.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad ( España) RTI2018-094945-B-C21Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España) RTI2018-099639-B-I0

Improved Method to Select the Lagrange Multiplier for Rate-Distortion Based Motion Estimation in Video Coding

The motion estimation (ME) process used in the H.264/AVC reference software is based on minimizing a cost function that involves two terms (distortion and rate) that are properly balanced through a Lagrangian parameter, usually denoted as lambda(motion). In this paper we propose an algorithm to improve the conventional way of estimating lambda(motion) and, consequently, the ME process. First, we show that the conventional estimation of lambda(motion) turns out to be significantly less accurate when ME-compromising events, which make the ME process to perform poorly, happen. Second, with the aim of improving the coding efficiency in these cases, an efficient algorithm is proposed that allows the encoder to choose between three different values of lambda(motion) for the Inter 16x16 partition size. To be more precise, for this partition size, the proposed algorithm allows the encoder to additionally test lambda(motion) = 0 and lambda(motion) arbitrarily large, which corresponds to minimum distortion and minimum rate solutions, respectively. By testing these two extreme values, the algorithm avoids making large ME errors. The experimental results on video segments exhibiting this type of ME-compromising events reveal an average rate reduction of 2.20% for the same coding quality with respect to the JM15.1 reference software of H.264/AVC. The algorithm has been also tested in comparison with a state-of-the-art algorithm called context adaptive Lagrange multiplier. Additionally, two illustrative examples of the subjective performance improvement are provided.This work has been partially supported by the National Grant TEC2011-26807 of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.Publicad