Precipitation Process in Fe-Ni-Al-based Alloys

This chapter covers first the precipitation and coarsening processes in Fe-Ni-Al alloys aged artificially at high temperatures, as well as their effect on the mechanical properties. These results show the precipitation evolution, morphology of precipitates, coarsening kinetics and mechanical properties such as hardness. Additionally, the effect of alloying elements such as copper and chromium is also studied on the precipitation and coarsening processes. The main results of this section are concerning on the coarsening kinetics and its effect on hardness. Besides, the diffusion couple method is employed to study the precipitation and coarsening process in different Fe-Ni-Al alloy compositions, as well as its effect on the hardness. All the above aspects of precipitation and coarsening are also supported with Thermo-Calc calculations

Design and assessment of an efficient and equitable dynamic urban water tariff. Application to the city of Valencia, Spain

Water pricing policies have a large and still relatively untapped potential to foster more efficient management of water resources in scarcity situations. This work contributes a framework for designing equitable, financially stable and economically efficient urban water tariffs. A hydroeconomic simulation model links the marginal value of water, which reflects water scarcity given its competing uses, to water supply reservoir levels. Varying reservoir levels trigger variations in the second block of the proposed two-block increasing-rate tariff; these variations then reflect water's value at that time. The work contrasts the two-block scarcity tariff with a constant volumetric rate for the city of Valencia, Spain, and the drought-prone Jucar basin, where most of 430,000 households are equipped with smart meters. Results show urban consumption is reduced by 18% in the driest years, lowering basin-wide scarcity costs by 34%

Project: Center for Diabetes and Metabolism [Centro de Diabetes y Metabolismo: CeDiMet], a collaborative dream comes true

Reynosa urban area has 690,000 inhabitants (384,000 adults \u3e20 years old), 35% moved from other states. The use of cell phones is in 81%, personal computer or laptop with 29%. The prevalence of overweight is 39%, obesity 36%, and T2D 13%. The expected adult population with T2D is 49,900 individuals. The are 5 clinics prepared to attend T2D, and few with specialized personnel. The CeDiMet is a collaborative clinic involving health personnel and researchers from the Universidad Mexico Americana del Norte, Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas, Hospital General de Mexico “Dr. Eduardo Liceaga”, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and the Texas Diabetes Institute in San Antonio. The funding source comes from private companies in Reynosa. The clinical structure includes physicians, nurses, nutritionists, psychologists, and a section for telemedicine for consulting specialists from USA and Mexico City. Besides clinical attendance, the CeDiMet will conduct educational activities in offices, factories, churches, and schools for prevention of obesity complications (T2D and hypertension), early detection of diabetic foot, fatty liver, and endothelial damage. “Tree of Health in the Family” is a program to encourage youth to know and understand the metabolic problems in their families to focus on prevention. Recently, we obtained a grant from COTACyT to explore the effect of COVID-19 in a cohort of 200 students and their families. The analysis of post-traumatic stress due to confinement and antibodies concentration to detect contacts and its association with metabolic problems is an example of the research we can perform

The biology and behavior of the longhorned beetle, Dectes texanus on sunflower and soybean

The biology and behavior of the longhorned beetle Dectes texanus LeConte (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) was studied on two host plants that suffer economic losses from this pest; sunflower, Helianthus annuus, and soybean, Glycines max. Reciprocal crosses of D. texanus collected from the two plants all produced viable progeny, indicating that conspecific insects attack both crops. Pupae from soybean stalks weighed about 40% less than those from sunflower, and adults fed on soybean lived a mean of 23 days, compared to a mean of 53 days (males) and 76 days (females) for those fed sunflower. A female's larval host plant had no effect on her tendency to ovipuncture plants of either type in a greenhouse trial. A field-tested population collected exclusively from sunflower contained three types of females in similar proportions: those that laid eggs only on sunflower, those that laid only on soybean, and those that laid equally on both host plants. Females in field trials fed more on the plant they had fed on in the laboratory, but soybean-fed females fed more on soybean than did sunflower-fed females. Females fed soybean also made more ovipunctures on soybean plants in field trials than sunflower-fed females, but their responses to sunflower plants were similar. Females displayed higher total ovipositional activity when they encountered sunflower first in the field, and lower total activity when they encountered soybean first. Feeding scores were significantly correlated with ovipunctures and eggs on both plant types. We conclude that sunflower is the preferred host plant, although females will accept soybean when it is the only available food. The results suggest that D. texanus is still in the initial stages of a host range expansion with female host selection behavior demonstrating both genetic influences and phenotypic flexibility. Sunflower represents a nutritionally superior, ancestral host plant and relatively high fitness costs are still associated with utilization of the novel host plant, soybean, costs that may be offset by benefits such as reduced intraspecific competition. These potential benefits and their consequent implications for D. texanus host range evolution are hypothesized and discussed

Assessment of smart-meter-enabled dynamic pricing at utility and river basin scale

The advent of smart metering is set to revolutionize many aspects of the relationship between water utilities and their customers, and this includes the possibility of using time-varying water prices as a demand management strategy. These dynamic tariffs could promote water use efficiency by reflecting the variations of water demand, availability, and delivery costs over time. This paper relates the potential benefits of dynamic water tariffs, at the utility and basin scale, to their design across a range of timescales. On one end of the spectrum, subdaily peak pricing shifts use away from peak hours to lower a utility’s operational and capital expenses. On the other end, scarcity pricing factors in the variations of the marginal opportunity cost of water at weekly or longer timescales in the river basin from which water is withdrawn. Dynamic pricing schemes that act across timescales can be devised to yield both types of benefits. The analysis estimates these benefits separately for Greater London (United Kingdom) and its 15 million inhabitants. Scarcity pricing implemented on a weekly timescale equates the marginal cost of residential water with estimates of the marginal economic values of environmental-recreational flows derived from tourism, property values, etc. Scarcity pricing during droughts could result in a 22–63% average reduction in environmental flow shortage while residential price increases would be capped at 150% of base levels. Yet, its ability to protect environmental flows could decrease in extreme shortage situations. The net present value of savings from peak pricing is conservatively evaluated at approximately £10 million for each initial percentage point in daily peak-hour price increase

Structural snapshot of a bacterial phytochrome in its functional intermediate state

Phytochromes are modular photoreceptors of plants, bacteria and fungi that use light as a source of information to regulate fundamental physiological processes. Interconversion between the active and inactive states is accomplished by a photoinduced reaction sequence which couples the sensor with the output module. However, the underlying molecular mechanism is yet not fully understood due to the lack of structural data of functionally relevant intermediate states. Here we report the crystal structure of a Meta-F intermediate state of an Agp2 variant from Agrobacterium fabrum. This intermediate, the identity of which was verified by resonance Raman spectroscopy, was formed by irradiation of the parent Pfr state and displays significant reorientations of almost all amino acids surrounding the chromophore. Structural comparisons allow identifying structural motifs that might serve as conformational switch for initiating the functional secondary structure change that is linked to the (de-)activation of these photoreceptors

Economic risk assessment of drought impacts on irrigated agriculture

[EN] In this paper, we present an innovative framework for an economic risk analysis of drought impacts on irrigated agriculture. It consists on the integration of three components: stochastic time series modelling for prediction of inflows and future reservoir storages at the beginning of the irrigation season; statistical regression for the evaluation of water deliveries based on projected inflows and storages; and econometric modelling for economic assessment of the production value of agriculture based on irrigation water deliveries and crop prices. Therefore, the effect of the price volatility can be isolated from the losses due to water scarcity in the assessment of the drought impacts. Monte Carlo simulations are applied to generate probability functions of inflows, which are translated into probabilities of storages, deliveries, and finally, production value of agriculture. The framework also allows the assessment of the value of mitigation measures as reduction of economic losses during droughts. The approach was applied to the Jucar river basin, a complex system affected by multiannual severe droughts, with irrigated agriculture as the main consumptive demand. Probability distributions of deliveries and production value were obtained for each irrigation season. In the majority of the irrigation districts, drought causes a significant economic impact. The increase of crop prices can partially offset the losses from the reduction of production due to water scarcity in some districts. Emergency wells contribute to mitigating the droughts' impacts on the Jucar river system. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This study has been supported by the IMPADAPT project (CGL2013-48424-C2-1-R) with Spanish MINECO (Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad) and European FEDER funds; the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the IMPREX project (GA 641.811) and the FP7 project ENHANCE (FP7, 308438).Lopez-Nicolas, A.; Pulido-Velazquez, M.; Macian-Sorribes, H. (2017). Economic risk assessment of drought impacts on irrigated agriculture. Journal of Hydrology. 550:580-589. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.05.004S58058955