Loss of largest and oldest individuals of the Montpellier snake correlates with recent warming in the southeastern Iberian Peninsula

The effects of climate change on organisms are now being extensively studied in many different taxa. However, the variation in body size, usually shrinkage in response to increasing temperature, has received little attention regarding to reptiles. During past periods of global warming, many organisms shrank in size, and current evidence and experiments manipulating temperature have shown a biomass decrease in some organisms with increasing temperatures. Here we test whether the body size of the Montpellier snake Malpolon monspessulanus from the southeastern Iberian Peninsula is changing and correlated with the increasing temperature in this region during a 39year period (1976–2014). We measured the snout–vent length (SVL) of vouchers in scientific collections to check for trends in adult body size at the population level in relation with temperature, while controlling for the age of the individuals (estimated by skeletochronology, n¼141). Given the great ontogenetic variation in body size of the study species, we categorized age in 3 classes: “young adults” (under 5 years old), “intermediate adults” (from 5 to 7 years old), and “old adults” (from 8 to 14 years old). By means of linear mixed models, we found a negative relationship between SVL of “old adults” and average annual temperature in the region during the lifetime of each individual. Our results indicate that largest and oldest individuals of the Montpellier Snake, that is, males because of strong sexual size dimorphism in this species, disappeared from the study population, and suggest that it occurred in response to rising environmental temperature.Junta de Andalucía RNM-25

Hybrid algorithm with perturbations for total asymptotically non-expansive mappings in CAT(0) space

In this paper, we establish strong and Δ-convergence theorems of the modified hybrid-CR three steps iteration with perturbations for total asymptotically non-expansive mapping in CAT(0) spaces. Our results improve and extend the corresponding results from the current literature. We also provide three examples to illustrate the convergence behaviour of the proposed algorithm and numerically compare the convergence of the proposed iteration scheme with the existing schemes

Manual para los Terceros de la Sagrada Orden de Predicadores

Copia digital : Junta de Castilla y León. Consejería de Cultura y Turismo, 2014Sign.: [calderón]8, A-L8.Letras capitales ornadas y viñetas xil. en final de ca

Load transmission between slabs and shores during the construction of RC building structures A review

[EN] Shoring successive floors is at present the most frequently used technique when constructing reinforced concrete (RC) building structures. This technique allows the recently poured slabs to be supported by the lower slabs by means of shores. Considering the particular characteristics of shoring successive floors, it is very important to be able to estimate how loads are transmitted between shores and slabs in order to maintain adequate structural safety and avoid situations of risk or even collapse in buildings under construction. The transmission of loads from shores to slabs during all the construction stages is a complex phenomenon and has been the subject of numerous studies, especially in recent years. The research carried out to date has included experiments on fullscale buildings and the development of advanced numerical models, the estimation of the loads acting on slabs during construction, the definition of simplified calculation methods to estimate loads on slabs and shores during building construction and estimating the appropriate construction times taking into account the evolution of the mechanical properties of early-age concrete. This paper was conceived in order to give an answer to: (1) advances in the field of constructing RC building structures, (2) the growing interest of the scientific community, and (3) the need for the structural and construction engineering sector to have the tools available to increase the safety and design of building construction processes. The paper is unique in the field of RC building structures in that it is the widest, most complete and most ambitious review carried out to date and includes the most important advances in the study of slab-shore load transmissions. This work will be of interest to researchers who wish to go deeper into the field of building construction, and to more experienced professionals who require all the up-to-date information in a single document. However, engineers, architects and builders could also find the paper an excellent guide that will help them to improve their daily work in the field of designing and constructing buildings.The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport for funding received under the FPU Program [FPU13/02466] and also to the Generalitat Valenciana [GV/2015/063].Buitrago, M.; Adam, JM.; Moragues, JJ.; Calderón García, PA. (2018). Load transmission between slabs and shores during the construction of RC building structures A review. Engineering Structures. 173:951-959. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2018.07.04695195917

Load limiters on shores: Design and experimental research

[EN] When constructing reinforced concrete building structures, shores are normally used to transmit the loads from freshly poured slabs to lower floors. However, certain problems are involved in this process, including: (a) the loads on the shores may be higher than expected, which can lead to the collapse of the shoring system or even of the whole structure, and (b) the limited range of shore types in commercial catalogues, which often means that the shores used are oversized. This paper describes the study carried out on the development of a new loadlimiter (LL) that can be fitted to shores to improve safety and reduce the cost of constructing building structures. The study shows that combining mechanical and civil engineering fields made it possible to produce a novel device that could revolutionise the shoring techniques at present in use. The method of designing and implementing the LLs involved: (a) the design of prototypes by using numerical simulations, (b) the use of the design of experiments technique, (c) an ambitious experimental campaign in which LL were tested, (d) the detailed simulation of the final design, and (e) the formulation of a simplified model that considers the behaviour of the shore-LL as a unit.The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport for funding received under the FPU Program [FPU13/02466], also to the Generalitat Valenciana [GV/2015/063] and to Professor Salvador Ivorra from University of Alicante for helping us to carry out the steel characterization tests.Buitrago, M.; Adam, JM.; Calderón García, PA.; Moragues, JJ. (2018). Load limiters on shores: Design and experimental research. Engineering Structures. 173:1029-1038. doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2018.07.063S1029103817

Early otic development depends on autophagy for apoptotic cell clearance and neural differentiation

Autophagy is a highly regulated program of self-degradation of the cytosolic constituents that has key roles during early development and in adult cell growth and homeostasis. To investigate the role of autophagy in otic neurogenesis, we studied the expression of autophagy genes in early stages of chicken (Gallus gallus) inner ear development and the consequences of inhibiting the autophagic pathway in organotypic cultures of explanted chicken otic vesicles (OVs). Here we show the expression of autophagy-related genes (Atg) Beclin-1 (Atg6), Atg5 and LC3B (Atg8) in the otocyst and the presence of autophagic vesicles by using transmission electron microscopy in the otic neurogenic zone. The inhibition of the transcription of LC3B by using antisense morpholinos and of class III phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase with 3-methyladenine causes an aberrant morphology of the OV with accumulation of apoptotic cells. Moreover, inhibition of autophagy provokes the misregulation of the cell cycle in the otic epithelium, impaired neurogenesis and poor axonal outgrowth. Finally, our results indicate that autophagy provides the energy required for the clearing of neuroepithelial dying cells and suggest that it is required for the migration of otic neuronal precursors. Taken together, our results show for the first time that autophagy is an active and essential process during early inner ear development

Synthesis of IDDQ-Testable Circuits: Integrating Built-in Current Sensors

"On-Chip" I_{DDQ} testing by the incorporation of Built-In Current (BIC) sensors has some advantages over "off-chip" techniques. However, the integration of sensors poses analog design problems which are hard to be solved by a digital designer. The automatic incorporation of the sensors using parameterized BIC cells could be a promising alternative. The work reported here identifies partitioning criteria to guide the synthesis of I_{DDQ}-testable circuits. The circuit must be partitioned, such that the defective I_{DDQ} is observable, and the power supply voltage perturbation is within specified limits. In addition to these constraints, also cost criteria are considered: circuit extra delay, area overhead of the BIC sensors, connectivity costs of the test circuitry, and the test application time. The parameters are estimated based on logical as well as electrical level information of the target cell library to be used in the technology mapping phase of the synthesis process. The resulting cost function is optimized by an evolution-based algorithm. When run over large benchmark circuits our method gives significantly superior results to those obtained using simpler and less comprehensive partitioning methods.Postprint (published version

Rendezvous consensus algorithm applied to the location of possible victims in disaster zones

In this paper is presented an alternative to performing the analysis of the sensors in the field of applied cooperative robotics for search and location of disaster victims. This work proposes the use of the Rendezvous algorithm to validate the information coming from the sensors of a multi-robot system. The sensors located in each one of the robotic agents provide a measured value according to the existence or not of victims in the surrounding zone to the robot. Since the information coming from the robots is not the same, however, its belong to the same sensed parameters, the Rendezvous algorithm is used to find a consensus of opinion about the existence of victims. In addition, the swarm of robots uses bio-inspired techniques to generate the navigation algorithm. This navigation algorithm was inspired by the foraging technique used by swarms such as bees, birds or bacteria. The results present some Rendezvous algorithm simulation and robot swarm navigation showing the feasibility of the proposed system.http://unidadinvestigacion.usta.edu.c