Use of portable devices and confocal Raman spectrometers at different wavelength to obtain the spectral information of the main organic components in tomatoes (Solanum Lycopersicum) fruits

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) fruit samples, in two ripening stages, ripe (red) and unripe (green), collected from a cultivar in the North of Spain (Barrika, Basque Country), were analyzed directly, without any sample pretreatment, with two different Raman instruments (portable spectrometer coupled to a micro-videocamera and a confocal Raman microscope), using two different laser excitation wavelengths (514 and 785 nm, only for the confocal microscope). The combined use of these laser excitation wavelengths allows obtaining, in a short period of time, the maximum spectral information about the main organic compounds present in this fruit. The major identified components of unripe tomatoes were cutin and cuticular waxes. On the other hand, the main components on ripe tomatoes were carotenes, polyphenoles and polysaccharides. Among the carotenes, it was possible to distinguish the presence of lycopene from b-carotene with the help of both excitation wavelengths, but specially using the 514 nm one, which revealed specific overtones and combination tones of this type of carotene.This work has been financially supported by Research Project S-PE11-UN128 of the Basque Country government. Technical and support provided by SGIker (UPV/EHU, MICINN, GV/EJ, ESF) is gratefully acknowledged

A GIS based seismic risk scenario of the cities of Santa Fé and Atarfe in Andalucía, Spain

This paper applies a GIS -based methodology to a case study in the cities of Atarfe and Santa Fé in Anadalucía (Spain) which recently suffered a seismic series with six magnitude 4 earthquakes. The framework for estimating the risk scenario essentially relates each housing building in the cadastral, to the probability of reaching different levels of seismic damage, namely negligible, slight, moderate, extensive given the seismic hazard in the area under study. It is built on the python toolbox pandas and QuantumGIS. Although only minor to light damages were observed and reported during the seismic series, this study reveals that there is a high-risk scenario in the area if the 475-year design earthquake occurred nowadays.Este artículo aplica una metodología basada en SIG a un caso de estudio en las ciudades de Atarfe y Santa Fé en Anadalucía (España) que recientemente sufrieron una serie sísmica con seis terremotos de magnitud 4. Esencialmente, se relaciona cada edificación de vivienda en el catastro con su probabilidad de alcanzar diferentes niveles de daño sísmico: insignificante, leve, moderado, extenso dada la amenaza sísmica en el área de estudio. Está desarrollado en python pandas y QuantumGIS. Aunque solo se observaron y reportaron daños menores a leves durante la serie sísmica, este estudio revela que existe un escenario de alto riesgo en el área si el terremoto de proyecto de 475 años ocurriera en la actualidad.Grant PID2020-120135RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by the Programa Operativo FEDER 2014-2020/Junta de Andalucía/Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades/Proyecto B-TEP- 306-UGR18

Molècules fluorescents per a crear inhibidors de proteases

Un grup d'investigadors de l'Institut de Biotecnologia i de Biomedicina i del Departament de Bioquímica i de Biologia Molecular de la UAB, dirigit pel catedràtic Francesc Xavier Avilés, està coordinant un projecte europeu que estudia les proteases en situacions normals i de malaltia mitjançant marcadors fluorescents que permeten monitoritzar-les. Es tracta del projecte Chemical Genomics by Activity Monitoring of Proteases (CAMP), i té com a objectiu final produir fàrmacs contra les proteases en situacions d'inflamació, malalties cardiovasculars, càncer i neurodegeneració.Un grupo de investigadores del Instituto de Biotecnología y Biomedicina y del Departamento de Bioquímica y de Biología Molecular de la UAB, dirigido por el catedrátic Francesc Xavier Avilés, está coordinando un proyecto europeo que estudia las proteasas en situaciones normales y de enfermedad mediante marcadores fluorescentes que permiten monitoritzarlas. Se trata del proyecto Chemical Genomics by Activity Monitoring of Proteases (CAMP), y tiene como objetivo final producir fármacos contra las proteasas en situaciones de inflamación, enfermedades cardiovasculares, cáncer y neurodegeneración.A research group of the UAB Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine and the UAB Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, directed by Francesc Xavier Avilés, is the coordinator of a European project aimed at studying proteases with fluorescent molecules that allow their monitoring in healthy and pathological situations. Entitled "Chemical Genomics by Activity Monitoring of Proteases" (CAMP), the project was designed with the final objective of developing drugs to control proteases in inflammations, cardiovascular diseases, cancer and neurodegeneration

Portable and Raman imaging usefulness to detect decaying on mortars from Punta Begoña Galleries (Getxo, North of Spain)

Punta Begoña Galleries were built in 1918 in Getxo (Basque Country, North of Spain) but were abandoned in 1960. Nowadays, their conservation state is very poor. In this work, portable Raman spectroscopy was applied to evaluate the original composition and possible deterioration products of the mortars used in the inner walls and those covering the concrete of the ceilings allowing us to select the most appropriate sampling points. In the laboratory, Raman microscopy and Raman imaging, assisted with scanning electron microscopy equipped with an energy dispersive spectrometer (SEM‐EDS), X‐ray diffraction and energy dispersive X‐ray fluorescence (ED‐XRF) imaging, allowed to identify the key compounds to understand the deterioration processes taking place in the mortars of the galleries. The main components of the mortars from the walls were calcite and gypsum. In some cases, alite (Ca3SiO5) and belite (Ca2SiO4) were identified; these components are characteristic of Portland cement clinker. The main components of the mortar covering the concrete were calcite, quartz, aragonite and gypsum. The aragonite identification confirmed the use of beach sand as the aggregate in the mortar. The concrete from the ceiling of the lower gallery is covered with three different mortar layers; the outermost layer is covered with a black crust. In the three mortars, the main components are similar to those used in the mortar covering the concrete from the upper gallery. Thanks to Raman, ED‐XRF and SEM‐EDS imaging, it was possible to map the distribution of the main components through the three mortar layers and also to identify the presence of dolomite {[CaMg(CO3)2]}, which was not possible to detect following single‐point micro‐Raman analyses.This work has been funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the project DISILICA‐1930 (ref. BIA2014‐59124‐P) and by the cooperation agreement between the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and the City Council of Getxo (OTRI2014‐0639). C. García‐Florentino is grateful to the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), which funded her predoctoral fellowship. Technical support provided by Raman‐LASPEA Laboratory and General X‐ray Service of the SGIKer (UPV/EHU, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain, Basque Government, ERDF and European Social Fund) is also gratefully acknowledged

Nature and origin of white efflorescence on bricks, artificial stones, and joint mortars of modern houses evaluated by portable Raman spectroscopy and laboratory analyses

Bricks and mortar currently constitute one of the most important building materials used in the construction of most modern facades. The deterioration of these materials is caused primarily by the impact of numerous external stressors, while poor manufacturing quality, particularly of mortars, can also contribute to this process. In this work, the non-invasive Raman spectroscopy technique was used to identify the recently formed deterioration compounds (primarily sulfates and nitrates) in bricks, artificial stones, and joint mortars from detached houses in the Bilbao metropolitan area (Basque Country, North of Spain), as well as to investigate the deterioration processes taking place in these materials. Additionally, to confirm and in some cases complement the results obtained with Raman spectroscopy, SEM-EDS and XRD measurements were also carried out.This work was financially supported by DEMBUMIES (ref.BIA2011-28148) and funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). H. Morillas is grateful to the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) and particularly to the UFI 11-26 Global Change and Heritage, who funded his pre-doctoral fellowship. Technical support provided by the Raman-LASPEA and General X-ray Service: Rocks and Minerals laboratories of SGIker (UPV/EHU, MICINN, GV/EJ, ERDF and ESF) is also gratefully acknowledged

A novel semi-empirical approach to non-destructively evaluate the effect of infills on frame buildings

Masonry infilled frame (MIF) structures are commonly used as building system in many regions, and particularly in Latin American, Mediterranean, and Pacific countries, which are areas highly exposed to seismic events. It is well known that the influence of the infilled frames on the seismic response is affected by several sources of uncertainties which create unsafe unaccuracies in the seismic behaviour of a building. The use of existing complex models is an option which require a large number of specialized input values and data mostly obtained from in-situ destructive tests, thus making them infeasible in many practical cases. This research is a first attempt to provide an approach which provides prediction of the structural behaviour of a MIF with quantified uncertainty, and using as inputs values that can be obtained through a low-cost non-destructive test. The proposed method exploits the known interaction between the in-plane (IP) and out-of-plane (OoP) behaviour of the masonry wall by providing a semi-empirical model which predicts the IP stiffness of the MIF in terms of the measured OoP fundamental frequency. The semi-empirical approach has been nurtured with five experimental tests over one-fourth scale MIFs, where the OoP fundamental frequency variation has been obtained in terms of the IP deformation history. The results indicate that the proposed method can become a practical tool to experimentally quantify the contribution of the masonry infills of existing frame buildings, and also to theoretically predict it during design phase. However, a larger dataset of tests should be used on the calibration of the method before its application in real cases.Seminario Permanente de Formación e Investigación en Ingeniería Civil, y proyecto europeo ENHAnCE (https://www.h2020-enhanceitn.eu/), Ref. 859957

A method to characterize climate, Earth or environmental vector random processes

We propose a general methodology to characterize a non-stationary random process that can be used for simulating random realizations that keep the probabilistic behavior of the original time series. The probability distribution of the process is assumed to be a piecewise function defined by several weighted parametric probability models. The weights are obtained analytically by ensuring that the probability density function is well defined and that it is continuous at the common endpoints. Any number of subintervals and continuous probability models can be chosen. The distribution is assumed to vary periodically in time over a predefined time interval by defining the model parameters and the common endpoints as truncated generalized Fourier series. The coefficients of the expansions are obtained with the maximum likelihood method. Different sets of orthogonal basis functions are tested. The method is applied to three time series with different particularities. Firstly, it is shown its good behavior to capture the high variability of the precipitation projected at a semiarid location of Spain for the present century. Secondly, for the Wolf sunspot number time series, the Schwabe cycle and time variations close to the 7.5 and 17 years are analyzed along a 22-year cycle. Finally, the method is applied to a bivariate time series that contains (1) freshwater discharges at the last regulation point of a dam located in a semiarid zone in Andalucı´a (Spain) which is influenced not only by the climate variability but also by management decisions and (2) the salinity at the mouth of the river. For this case, the analysis, that was combined with a vectorial autoregressive model, focus on the assessment of the goodness of the methodology to replicate the statistical features of the original series. In particular, it is found that it reproduces the marginal and joint distributions and the duration of sojourns above/below given thresholds.Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sustainable Development of the Junta de Andalucia CONTR 2018 66984Consejeria de Transformacio n Economica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades de la Junta de Andalucia POSTDOC_ 21_00724Programa Operativo FEDER de Andalucia 30BE61F30

MarineTools.temporal: A Python package to simulate Earth and environmental time series

This work was performed within the framework of the following projects: (1) AQUACLEW, which is part of ERA4CS, an ERA-NET initiative by JPI Climate, and funded by FORMAS (SE) , DLR (DE) , BMWFW (AT) , IFD (DK) , MINECO (ES) , ANR (FR) with co-funding by the European Commission [Grant 690462] and (2) Flooding and erosion works in coastal areas of Andalusia under a climate change scenario, funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sus-tainable Development of the Junta de Andalucia [Contrat No. CONTR 2018 66984] . Part of this study has been conducted using E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada/CBUA.The assessment of the uncertainty about the evolution of complex processes usually requires different realizations consisting of multivariate temporal signals of environmental data. However, it is common to have only one observational set. MarineTools.temporal is an open-source Python package for the non-stationary parametric statistical analysis of vector random processes suitable for environmental and Earth modelling. It takes a single timeseries of observations and allows the simulation of many time series with the same probabilistic behavior. The software generalizes the use of piecewise and compound distributions with any number of arbitrary continuous distributions. The code contains, among others, multi-model negative log-likely functions, wrappednormal distributions, and generalized Fourier timeseries expansion. Its programming philosophy significantly improves the computing time and makes it compatible with future extensions of scipy.stats. We apply it to the analysis of freshwater river discharge, water currents, and the simulation of ensemble projections of sea waves, to show its capabilities.Swedish Research Council FormasHelmholtz AssociationGerman Aerospace Centre (DLR)BMWFWSpanish GovernmentFrench National Research Agency (ANR)European Commission European Commission Joint Research CentreMinistry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sus-tainable Development of the Junta de Andalucia 690462CONTR 2018 6698