HOT HARDNESS MEASUREMENTS ON MATERIALS UP TO 600 °C DURING THE FIRST HOUR OF USING

In the aeronautical field, materials are used in severe environmental conditions (temperature, atmosphere, exposure time ...), particularly for engine applications. In order to characterize the use of these materials in the evaluation of their properties, it is necessary to carry out tests in conditions close to their operating environment. Hot hardness is a simple method which can be applied on many different materials such as oxidized layers, coatings, composite materials, brazing cords, additive manufacturing materials. ONERA is developing micromechanical characterization means to carry out Vickers microhardness tests from room temperature up to 600 °C. In principle, a pyramidal punch is applied on the surface of a material and the applied load is continuously measured during indenter’s moving in the material. The material is tested locally under conditions close to the actual conditions of employment. The goal of this research is to improve microindentation in order to achieve temperature test campaigns up to 600 °C under a controlled atmosphere of argon and to validate a method to produce a series of results during the first hour of using up to 600 °C. Stainless material is studied to compare the evolution of its hot hardness properties versus different parameters such as load, holding time at the maximum load, atmosphere, and thermal duration. A discussion about these measurements and the technical limits of hot hardness technology is presented

Análisis morfológico de la dinámica de fragmentos de Paspalum quadrifarium en una zona de la cuenca del río Salado del sur

A pesar de su gran distribución a nivel mundial, sólo un 4.6% de los pastizales templados figura dentro de los sistemas nacionales de áreas protegidas. En Argentina, esta situación es aún más alarmante ya que solamente el 1.05% se encuentra protegido. El área de estudio (zona central de la cuenca del río Salado del sur) posee una gran representatividad de pajonales de paja colorada (Paspalum quadrifarium), que son sometidos desde el siglo pasado a diversas prácticas de manejo. En este trabajo se aplicó el MSPA (Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis) y su consecuencia de análisis de grafos, el análisis de redes para estimación de conectividad, con el fin de analizar el cambio en el tiempo (1975-2011) en los fragmentos de hábitat mencionados. Los resultados indican una disminución drástica de la representatividad de las zonas núcleo de estos hábitat, y de su conectividad, hecho que probablemente afecte la movilidad de especies de la fauna local.Despite its wide distribution worldwide, only 4.6% of temperate grasslands are contained within national systems of protected areas. In Argentina, this situation is even more alarming: only 1.05% is protected. The study area (central area of the southern Salado River basin) has a large representation of grasslands of Paspalum quadrifarium which has been target since the last century of a variety of management practices. In this work the MSPA (Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis) and their consequence: network analysis applied to graphs, was performed for estimation of connectivity between patches in order to analyze the change in time (1975-2011) of the habitat fragments mentioned. The results indicate a drastic decrease of representativeness of the core of these habitat areas and its connectivity, which probably affects the mobility of some species of local fauna

A methodology for the characterization of land use using medium-resolution spatial images

Introducción: La caracterización de los usos del suelo representa uno de los insumos indispensables para el manejo de los recursos naturales a diferentes escalas. Objetivo: Desarrollar una metodología para caracterizar el uso del suelo en la cuenca superior del arroyo del Azul (Buenos Aires, Argentina), a través de la fusión de imágenes satelitales de media resolución espacial. Materiales y métodos: Se utilizó una serie temporal de 23 imágenes del índice de vegetación de diferencia normalizada (NDVI, por sus siglas en inglés) del satélite MODIS-Terra (producto MOD13Q1) para el periodo mayo 2015 - mayo 2016. Además, se emplearon imágenes Landsat 8 para discriminar algunas categorías difíciles de clasificar con NDVI-MODIS. El mapa final de coberturas se validó considerando puntos de verificación independientes al proceso de clasificación; su precisión se evaluó a través del estadístico Kappa. Resultados y discusión: La serie temporal de NDVI permitió reconocer los patrones fenológicos de las coberturas y usos del suelo de mayor representatividad en la región. Se discriminaron siete coberturas; los usos agrícolas representaron 81.5 % de la superficie, siendo el sistema de doble cultivo trigo-soya (soja en Argentina) el predominante (39.4 %). La precisión global del mapa final fue alta (88.9 %, coeficiente Kappa = 0.86). Conclusión: La metodología empleada tiene la ventaja de ser rápida y replicable, para caracterizar los usos del suelo de una región determinada y evaluar sus cambios potenciales a lo largo del tiempo.Introduction: The characterization of land uses represents one of the essential inputs for the management of natural resources at different scales. Objective: To develop a methodology to characterize land use in the upper creek basin from the Azul stream (Buenos Aires, Argentina), through the fusion of satellite images with a medium spatial resolution. Materials and methods: A time-series of 23 images was used from the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of the MODIS-Terra satellite (product MOD13Q1) for the period May 2015 - May 2016. Landsat 8 images were used to discriminate some categories difficult to classify with NDVI-MODIS. The final cover map was validated regarding verification points independent to the classification process; its accuracy was evaluated by means of the Kappa statistic. Results and discussion: The NDVI time series allowed to recognize the phenological patterns of the covers and land use of greater representativeness in the region. Seven land cover were discriminated; the agricultural uses represented 81.5 % of the surface, double-crop wheat-soya (soybean in Argentina) system predominated (39.4 %). The overall accuracy of the final map was high (88.9 %, Kappa coefficient = 0.86). Conclusion: The methodology used has the advantage of being quick and replicable, to characterize the land uses of a given region and to evaluate its potential changes over time.Fil: Guevara Ochoa, Cristian. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Rectorado. Instituto de Hidrología de Llanuras - Sede Azul. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Hidrología de Llanuras - Sede Azul; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Lara, Bruno Daniel. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento Ciencias Básicas Agronómicas y Biológicas. Laboratorio de Investigación y Servicios en Teledetección de Azul; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Vives, Luis Sebastián. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Rectorado. Instituto de Hidrología de Llanuras - Sede Azul. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Hidrología de Llanuras - Sede Azul; ArgentinaFil: Zimmermann, Erik Daniel. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Ingeniería y Agrimensura. Centro Universidad Rosario de Investigaciones Hidroambientales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Gandini, Marcelo Luciano. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento Ciencias Básicas Agronómicas y Biológicas. Laboratorio de Investigación y Servicios en Teledetección de Azul; Argentin

Reactivity and fate of secondary alkane sulfonates (SAS) in marine sediments

This research is focused on secondary alkane sulfonates (SAS), anionic surfactants widely used in household applications that access aquatic environments mainly via sewage discharges.We studied their sorption capacity and anaerobic degradation in marine sediments, providing the first data available on this topic. SAS partition coefficients increased towards those homologues having longer alkyl chains(from up to 141 L kg 1 for C14 to up to 1753 L kg 1 for C17), which were those less susceptible to undergo biodegradation. Overall, SAS removal percentages reached up to 98% after 166 days of incubation using anoxic sediments. The degradation pathway consisted on the formation of sulfocarboxylic acids after an initial fumarate attack of the alkyl chain and successive b-oxidations. This is the first study showing that SAS can be degraded in absence of oxygen, so this new information should be taken into account for future environmental risk assessments on these chemicals

Editorial: Re-Enacting Sensorimotor Experience for Cognition

Peer Reviewe

Kumukumu 1, a hilltop site in the Aird Hills: Implications for occupational trends and dynamics in the Kikori River delta, south coast of Papua New Guinea

We report on archaeological excavations undertaken at Kumukumu 1 atop the dense rainforest-clad Aird Hills of the Kikori river delta islands, south coast of Papua New Guinea. Results indicate exploitation of the nearby environment, including the gathering of some 200 million shellfish from riverine habitats at the base of the hill some 600 years ago, and deposition of shell remains onto hilltop middens. We ask what the implications of such a site in a defensive location on the upper, steep hillslope of Kumukumu hill are for regional occupation and dynamics. We conclude that the hinterland-marine fringe islands of the river deltas that include the site of Kumukumu 1 were especially sensitive to heightened cross-cultural influences and inter-group raids and competition, leading to accelerated processes of centralisation and aggrandisement among some groups, and the subjugation, fragmentation and dispersal of less powerful neighbouring groups

Scaling Painting Style Transfer

Neural style transfer is a deep learning technique that produces an unprecedentedly rich style transfer from a style image to a content image and is particularly impressive when it comes to transferring style from a painting to an image. It was originally achieved by solving an optimization problem to match the global style statistics of the style image while preserving the local geometric features of the content image. The two main drawbacks of this original approach is that it is computationally expensive and that the resolution of the output images is limited by high GPU memory requirements. Many solutions have been proposed to both accelerate neural style transfer and increase its resolution, but they all compromise the quality of the produced images. Indeed, transferring the style of a painting is a complex task involving features at different scales, from the color palette and compositional style to the fine brushstrokes and texture of the canvas. This paper provides a solution to solve the original global optimization for ultra-high resolution images, enabling multiscale style transfer at unprecedented image sizes. This is achieved by spatially localizing the computation of each forward and backward passes through the VGG network. Extensive qualitative and quantitative comparisons show that our method produces a style transfer of unmatched quality for such high resolution painting styles.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure