Energy efficient wireless sensor network communications based on computational intelligent data fusion for environmental monitoring

The study presents a novel computational intelligence algorithm designed to optimise energy consumption in an environmental monitoring process: specifically, water level measurements in flooded areas. This algorithm aims to obtain a tradeoff between accuracy and power consumption. The implementation constitutes a data aggregation and fusion in itself. A harsh environment can make the direct measurement of flood levels a difficult task. This study proposes a flood level estimation, inferred through the measurement of other common environmental variables. The benefit of this algorithm is tested both with simulations and real experiments conducted in Donñana, a national park in southern Spain where flood level measurements have traditionally been done manually.Junta de Andalucía P07-TIC-0247

A novel clustering based method for characterizing household electricity consumption profiles

A new methodology based on expert knowledge and data mining is proposed to obtain data-driven models that characterize household consumption profiles. These profiles are useful for electricity marketers to understand their customers’ consumption. They could then adjust their electricity purchases in the market and provide recommendations to their customers to manage their consumption. The novelty of this research work is proposing a new procedure to determine an adequate number of clusters for a clustering task. Therefore, the proposed new methodology includes this novel procedure to build the models in two phases. In the first phase, clustering algorithms are used to group the data using different numbers of clusters. For the second phase, a new procedure (k-ISAC_TLP) is proposed and used to select the most appropriate number of clusters. This methodology allows the inclusion of domain information. In the case of household electricity consumption, where only groups with a significant number are relevant as long as the error is small, it allows the use of metrics like the mean absolute error and the number of observations (daily electricity consumption profiles). According to experts, the results achieved in two real datasets (from Spain and Ireland), with millions of observations support the methodology and reveal novel knowledge. In both cases, two and a half million observations have been analyzed and around twenty electricity consumption profiles have been detected. The methodology is easily extensible to problems of any domain where clustering algorithms are applicable. A software solution has been implemented and made freely available.Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga/CBUA . The authors would like to thank the University College Dublin Library the access to the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA). This work was supported by Grant RTI2018-095097-B-I00 funded by MCIN (Spain), Grant CPP2021-008403 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by the “European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR”

Five years of designing wireless sensor networks in the Doñana Biological Reserve (Spain): an applications approach

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are a technology that is becoming very popular for many applications, and environmental monitoring is one of its most important application areas. This technology solves the lack of flexibility of wired sensor installations and, at the same time, reduces the deployment costs. To demonstrate the advantages of WSN technology, for the last five years we have been deploying some prototypes in the Doñana Biological Reserve, which is an important protected area in Southern Spain. These prototypes not only evaluate the technology, but also solve some of the monitoring problems that have been raised by biologists working in Doñana. This paper presents a review of the work that has been developed during these five years. Here, we demonstrate the enormous potential of using machine learning in wireless sensor networks for environmental and animal monitoring because this approach increases the amount of useful information and reduces the effort that is required by biologists in an environmental monitoring task

Icephobic and anticorrosion coatings deposited by electrospinning on aluminum alloys for aerospace applications

Anti-icing or passive strategies have undergone a remarkable growth in importance as a complement for the de-icing approaches or active methods. As a result, many efforts for developing icephobic surfaces have been mostly dedicated to apply superhydrophobic coatings. Recently, a different type of ice-repellent structure based on slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) has attracted increasing attention for being a simple and effective passive ice protection in a wide range of application areas, especially for the prevention of ice formation on aircrafts. In this work, the electrospinning technique has been used for the deposition of PVDF-HFP coatings on samples of the aeronautical alloy AA7075 by using a thickness control system based on the identification of the proper combination of process parameters such as the flow rate and applied voltage. In addition, the influence of the experimental conditions on the nanofiber properties is evaluated in terms of surface morphology, wettability, corrosion resistance, and optical transmittance. The experimental results showed an improvement in the micro/nanoscale structure, which optimizes the superhydro-phobic and anticorrosive behavior due to the air trapped inside the nanotextured surface. In addi-tion, once the best coating was selected, centrifugal ice adhesion tests (CAT) were carried out for two types of icing conditions (glaze and rime) simulated in an ice wind tunnel (IWT) on both as-deposited and liquid-infused coatings (SLIPs). The liquid-infused coatings showed a low water adhesion (low contact angle hysteresis) and low ice adhesion strength, reducing the ice adhesion four times with respect to PTFE (a well-known low-ice-adhesion material used as a reference).Project RTI2018-096262-B-C41-MAITAI, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF 'A way of making Europe'. Grant PRE2019-090656: funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ESF 'Investing in your future'. Project PJUPNA1929 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF 'A way of making Europe' and by BEI

Comparing hysteretic energy and ductility uniform annual failure rate spectra for traditional and a spectral shape-based intensity measure

In this study, with the objective to develop a reliability-based seismic design tool, ductility and dissipated hysteretic energy uniform annual failure rate (UAFR) spectra are obtained and compared using the spectral acceleration at first mode of vibration of the structure Sa(T1) and the well-known spectral shape-based intensity measure INp. Notice that this is the first time in the literature that UAFR spectra are obtained for the advanced spectral shape intensity measure INp. For this aim, 110 simulated ground motions recorded from the soft soil of Mexico City were selected due to their large energy amount demanded to the structures; moreover, four elastoplastic hysteretic behavior models are considered for the dynamic analyses with post-yielding stiffness of 0, 3, 5, and 10%. It is observed that the use of elasto-perfectly plastic models provided similar UAFR spectra in comparison with hysteretic models with different post-yielding stiffness. This conclusion is valid for the two selected intensity measures. In addition, the lateral resistance required to achieve similar structural reliability levels is larger when the INp intensity measure is used, especially for buildings with vibration periods equal or larger than the soil period, in such a way that the traditional use of Sa(T1) could provide structures with less structural reliability levels.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Physical Fitness, White Matter Volume and Academic Performance in Children: Findings From the ActiveBrains and FITKids2 Projects

The aims of this study were (i) to examine the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and white matter volume and test whether those associations differ between normal-weight and overweight/obese children (ii) to analyze the association between other physical fitness components (i.e., motor and muscular) and white matter volume, and (iii) to examine whether the fitness-related associations in white matter volume were related to academic performance. Data came from two independent projects: ActiveBrains project (n = 100; 10.0 1.1 years; 100% overweight/obese; Spain) and FITKids2 project (n = 242; 8.6 0.5 years; 36% overweight/obese, United States). Cardiorespiratory fitness was assessed in both projects, and motor and muscular fitness were assessed in the ActiveBrains project. T1-weighted images were acquired with a 3.0 T S Magnetom Tim Trio system. Academic performance was assessed by standardized tests. Cardiorespiratory fitness may positively relate to white matter volume in overweight/obese children, and in turn, academic performance. In addition, motor and muscular fitness may also influence white matter volume coupled with better academic performance. From a public health perspective, implementing exercise interventions that combine aerobic, motor and muscular training to enhance physical fitness may benefit brain development and academic successThe ActiveBrains study was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (DEP2013-47540, DEP2016- 79512-R, and PSI2012-3929). The FITKids2 study was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (HD069381)

Evaluation of Adipose Tissue Zinc-Alpha 2-Glycoprotein Gene Expression and Its Relationship with Metabolic Status and Bariatric Surgery Outcomes in Patients with Class III Obesity

Zinc-α2 glycoprotein (ZAG) is an adipokine involved in adipocyte metabolism with potential implications in the pathogenesis of metabolic disorders. Our aim was to evaluate the relationship between visceral (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) ZAG expression and metabolic parameters in patients with class III obesity, along with the impact of basal ZAG expression on short- and medium-term outcomes related to bariatric surgery. 41 patients with class III obesity who underwent bariatric surgery were included in this study. ZAG gene expression was quantified in SAT and VAT. Patients were classified into two groups according to SAT and VAT ZAG percentile. Anthropometric and biochemical variables were obtained before and 15 days, 45 days, and 1 year after surgery. The lower basal SAT ZAG expression percentile was associated with higher weight and waist circumference, while the lower basal VAT ZAG expression percentile was associated with higher weight, waist circumference, insulin, insulin resistance, and the presence of metabolic syndrome. Basal SAT ZAG expression was inversely related to weight loss at 45 days after surgery, whereas no associations were found between basal VAT ZAG expression and weight loss after surgery. Additionally, a negative association was observed between basal SAT and VAT ZAG expression and the decrease of gamma-glutamyl transferase after bariatric surgery. Therefore, lower SAT and VAT ZAG expression levels were associated with an adverse metabolic profile. However, this fact did not seem to confer worse bariatric surgery-related outcomes. Further research is needed to assess the clinical significance of the role of ZAG expression levels in the dynamics of hepatic enzymes after bariatric surgeryThis study has been co-funded by FEDER funds (“A way to make Europe”). M.M. and L.G.S. are also supported by UMA18-FEDERJA-285 and UMA20-FEDERJA-144, co-funded by Malaga University, Junta de Andalucía and FEDER funds, CB06/03/0018, PI-0297-2018 and PI-0194-2017, co-funded by FEDER funds and Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de Andalucía, and CP17/00133, Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Spain Partial funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málag

Diabetic individuals with COVID-19 exhibit reduced efficacy of gliptins in inhibiting dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP4). A suggested explanation for increased COVID-19 susceptibility in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM)

Aims: Dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP4) has been proposed as a coreceptor for SARS-CoV-2 cellular entry. Considering that type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has been identified as the most important risk factor for SARS-CoV-2, and that gliptins (DPP4 inhibitors) are a prescribed diabetic treatment, this study aims to unravel the impact of DPP4 in the intersection of T2DM/COVID-19. Materials and methods: We analyzed 189 serum human samples, divided into six clinical groups (controls, T2DM, T2DM + gliptins, COVID-19, COVID-19 + T2DM, and COVID-19 + T2DM + gliptins), measuring DPP4 protein concentration and activity by Western blot, ELISA, and commercial activity kits. The obtained results were verified in Huh-7 cellular models. Key findings: Both DPP4 concentration and activity were decreased in COVID-19 patients, and as in T2DM patients, compared to controls. Despite these lower levels, the ratio of DPP4 activity/concentration in COVID-19 sera was the highest (0.782 ± 0.289 ?U/ng vs. 0.547 ± 0.050 ?U/ng in controls, p < 0.0001), suggesting a compensating mechanism in these patients. Supernatants of Huh-7 cells incubated with COVID-19 serum showed a consistent and significantly lower DPP4 concentration and activity. Furthermore, COVID-19 + T2DM + gliptins patients showed a higher serum DPP4 concentration and activity than T2DM + gliptin subjects (p < 0.05), indicating that sera from COVID-19 convalescents interfere with gliptins. Significance: Either SARS-CoV-2 or some metabolites present in the sera of COVID-19-convalescent patients interact with soluble DPP4 or even gliptins themselves since the inhibitory effect of gliptins on DPP4 activity is being prevented. The interactions between DPP4, gliptins, and SARS-CoV-2 should be further elucidated to reveal the mechanism of action for these interesting observations.Instituto de Salud Carlos IIIComunidad de MadridUniversidad de AlcaláFundación Tatiana Pérez de Guzmán el Buen

Dependence of polytetrafluoroethylene reflectance on thickness at visible and ultraviolet wavelengths in air

[EN] Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is an excellent diffuse reflector widely used in light collection systems for particle physics experiments. However, the reflectance of PTFE is a function of its thickness. In this work, we investigate this dependence in air for light of wavelengths 260 nm and 450 nm using two complementary methods. We find that PTFE reflectance for thicknesses from 5 mm to 10 mm ranges from 92.5% to 94.5% at 450 nm, and from 90.0% to 92.0% at 260 nm We also see that the reflectance of PIFE of a given thickness can vary by as much as 2.7% within the same piece of material. Finally, we show that placing a specular reflector behind the PTFE can recover the loss of reflectance in the visible without introducing a specular component in the reflectance.The NEXT Collaboration acknowledges support from the following agencies and institutions: the European Research Council (ERC) under the Advanced Grant 339787-NEXT; the European Union's Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) under the Grant Agreements No. 674896, 690575 and 740055; the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad and the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades of Spain under grants FIS2014-53371-C04, RTI2018-095979, the Severo Ochoa Program grants SEV-2014-0398 and CEX2018-000867-S, and the Maria de Maeztu Program MDM-2016-0692; the Generalitat Valenciana under grants PROMETEO/2016/120 and SEJI/2017/011; the Portuguese FCT under project PTDC/FIS-NUC/2525/2014 and under projects UID/04559/2020 to fund the activities of LIBPhys-UC; the U.S. Department of Energy under contracts No. DE-AC02-06CH11357 (Argonne National Laboratory), DE-AC0207CH11359 (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory), DE-FG02-13ER42020 (Texas A&M) and DE-SC0019223/DE-SC0019054 (University of Texas at Arlington); and the University of Texas at Arlington (USA). DGD acknowledges Ramon y Cajal program (Spain) under contract number RYC2015-18820. JM-A acknowledges support from Fundacion Bancaria "la Caixa" (ID 100010434), grant code LCF/BQ/PI19/11690012. Finally, we thank Brendon Bullard, Paolo Giromini and Neeraj Tata for helpful discussions and assistance with preliminary measurements.Ghosh, S.; Haefner, J.; Martín-Albo, J.; Guenette, R.; Li, X.; Loya Villalpando, A.; Burch, C.... (2020). Dependence of polytetrafluoroethylene reflectance on thickness at visible and ultraviolet wavelengths in air. Journal of Instrumentation. 15(11):1-17. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/15/11/P11031S1171511Auger, M., Auty, D. J., Barbeau, P. S., Bartoszek, L., Baussan, E., Beauchamp, E., … Cleveland, B. (2012). The EXO-200 detector, part I: detector design and construction. Journal of Instrumentation, 7(05), P05010-P05010. doi:10.1088/1748-0221/7/05/p05010Martín-Albo, J., Muñoz Vidal, J., Ferrario, P., Nebot-Guinot, M., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., … Cárcel, S. (2016). Sensitivity of NEXT-100 to neutrinoless double beta decay. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2016(5). doi:10.1007/jhep05(2016)159Rogers, L., Clark, R. A., Jones, B. J. P., McDonald, A. D., Nygren, D. R., Psihas, F., … Azevedo, C. D. . (2018). High voltage insulation and gas absorption of polymers in high pressure argon and xenon gases. Journal of Instrumentation, 13(10), P10002-P10002. doi:10.1088/1748-0221/13/10/p10002Silva, C., Pinto da Cunha, J., Pereira, A., Chepel, V., Lopes, M. I., Solovov, V., & Neves, F. (2010). Reflectance of polytetrafluoroethylene for xenon scintillation light. Journal of Applied Physics, 107(6), 064902. doi:10.1063/1.3318681Haefner, J., Neff, A., Arthurs, M., Batista, E., Morton, D., Okunawo, M., … Lorenzon, W. (2017). Reflectance dependence of polytetrafluoroethylene on thickness for xenon scintillation light. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 856, 86-91. doi:10.1016/j.nima.2017.01.057Kravitz, S., Smith, R. J., Hagaman, L., Bernard, E. P., McKinsey, D. N., Rudd, L., … Sakai, M. (2020). Measurements of angle-resolved reflectivity of PTFE in liquid xenon with IBEX. The European Physical Journal C, 80(3). doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-7800-6Geis, C., Grignon, C., Oberlack, U., García, D. R., & Weitzel, Q. (2017). Optical response of highly reflective film used in the water Cherenkov muon veto of the XENON1T dark matter experiment. Journal of Instrumentation, 12(06), P06017-P06017. doi:10.1088/1748-0221/12/06/p06017Allison, J., Amako, K., Apostolakis, J., Arce, P., Asai, M., Aso, T., … Barrand, G. (2016). Recent developments in Geant4. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 835, 186-225. doi:10.1016/j.nima.2016.06.12

Measurement of the Xe 136 two-neutrino double -decay half-life via direct background subtraction in NEXT

[EN] We report a measurement of the half-life of the 136Xe two-neutrino double-ß decay performed with a novel direct-background-subtraction technique. The analysis relies on the data collected with the NEXT-White detector operated with 136Xe-enriched and 136Xe-depleted xenon, as well as on the topology of double-electron tracks. With a fiducial mass of only 3.5 kg of Xe, a half-life of 2.34+0.80(stat)+0.30(sys)×1021 yr is derived from ¿0.46 ¿0.17 the background-subtracted energy spectrum. The presented technique demonstrates the feasibility of unique background-model-independent neutrinoless double-ß-decay searches.The NEXT Collaboration acknowledges support from the following agencies and institutions: the European Research Council (ERC) under Grant No. 951281-BOLD; the European Union's Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) under Grant No. 957202-HIDDEN; the MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 of Spain and ERDF "A way of making Europe" under Grant No. RTI2018-095979, the Severo Ochoa Program Grant No. CEX2018-000867-S, and the Maria de Maeztu Program Grant No. MDM-2016-0692; the Generalitat Valenciana of Spain under Grants No. PROMETEO/2021/087 and No. CIDEGENT/2019/049; the Portuguese FCT under Project No. UID/FIS/04559/2020 to fund the activities of LIBPhys-UC; the Pazy Foundation (Israel) under Grants No. 877040 and No. 877041; the U.S. Department of Energy under Contracts No. DE-AC02-06CH11357 (Argonne National Laboratory), No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory), No. DE-FG02-13ER42020 (Texas A&M), No. DE-SC0019054 (Texas Arlington), and No. DE-SC0019223 (Arlington, TX); the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. CHE 2004111; and the Robert A. Welch Foundation under Grant No. Y-203120200401. D.G.D. acknowledges support from the Ramon y Cajal program (Spain) under Contract No. RYC-2015-18820. Finally, we are grateful to the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc for hosting and supporting the NEXT experiment.Novella, P.; Sorel, M.; Usón, A.; Adams, C.; Almazán, H.; Álvarez-Puerta, V.; Aparicio, B.... (2022). Measurement of the Xe 136 two-neutrino double -decay half-life via direct background subtraction in NEXT. Physical Review C (Online). 105(5):055501-1-055501-8. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.105.055501055501-1055501-8105