Development of the instrumentation of the botafoc breakwater nº 8 caisson

Balearic Port Authority has developed an instrumentation system for the #8 caisson of the Botafoc breakwater that integrates 12 pressure sensors located at three surfaces, two in contact with the sea water and another with the bottom. This design was completed with an inertial system that measures the angular velocities and the accelerations over the three Cartesian axes. Consequently, the system measures actions (pressures) and reactions (movements and accelerations) experimented by the caisson, due to sea waves and/or other service loads. R+D department of the Port Authority and Polytechnic University of Madrid are working on two directions, the development of new theories on vertical breakwater design that go beyond Goda and Sainflou, and on the creation of a real-time critical structure alarm system, based on the instrumentation installed. This alarm system has two main parts: the instrumentation itself that collects data and processes it on real-time (the data processing compares the pressure law suffered by the caisson in every step process with the design critical state of the caisson, in this case the Goda pressure law for a 6.5 m wave), giving a security coefficient that points out the risk level on real-time; and the alarm system consisting of a monitoring panel located in the Port Control Center that shows the risk level and advises in case of an incidental evacuation of this critical portuary installation

Autonomous video compression system for environmental monitoring

[EN] The monitoring of natural environments is becoming a very controversial topic because people are more and more concerned about preserving and monitoring these natural spaces. The monitoring tasks are usually complemented with a network infrastructure composed by cameras and network devices that make easy the remote visualization of the monitored environments. This work presents the design, implementation and test of an autonomous video compression system for environmental monitoring. The system is based on a server in charge of collecting the videos and analyzing the network constraints. As a function of the measured parameters and the predominant color of the requested video, the system determines the best compression codec for transmitting the video through the network. Additionally, the server should run an algorithm developed in Python and MATLAB(c) in charge of analyzing the RED-GREEN-BLUE (RGB) components of the video and performing the transcoding tasks. The system has been tested with different videos and the results of Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) shows that H264 is a good option when the predominant color of videos are black or white while XVID is one the codecs that offer interesting results when colors as red, green or blue are predominant in the video.This work has been supported by the Programa para la Formación de Personal Investigador (FPI-2015-S2-884) by the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia . The research leading to these results has received funding from la Caixa Foundation and Triptolemos FoundationMateos-Cañas, I.; Sendra, S.; Lloret, J.; Jimenez, JM. (2017). Autonomous video compression system for environmental monitoring. Network Protocols and Algorithms. 9(1-2):48-70. https://doi.org/10.5296/npa.v9i1-2.12386S487091-

Development of a critical structure state alarm system based on the instrumentation of the Botafoc breakwater nº 8 caisson

Balearic Port Authority has developed an instrumentation system for the #8 caisson of the Botafoc breakwater that integrates 12 pressure sensors located at three surfaces, two in contact with the sea water and another with the bottom. This design was completed with an inertial system that measures the angular velocities and the accelerations over the three Cartesian axes. Consequently, the system measures actions (pressures) and reactions (movements and accelerations) experimented by the caisson, due to sea waves and/or other service loads. R+D department of the Port Authority and Polytechnic University of Madrid are working on two directions, the development of new theories on vertical breakwater design that go beyond Goda and Sainflou, and on the creation of a real-time critical structure alarm system, based on the instrumentation installed. This alarm system has two main parts: the instrumentation itself that collects data and processes it on real-time (the data processing compares the pressure law suffered by the caisson in every step process with the design critical state of the caisson, in this case the Goda pressure law for a 6.5 m wave), giving a security coefficient that points out the risk level on real-time; and the alarm system consisting of a monitoring panel located in the Port Control Center that shows the risk level and advises in case of an incidental evacuation of this critical portuary installation

Highly conductive microporous carbon fibers by electrospinning of lignin/phosphoric acid/ethanol solutions

This contribution reports the preparation of electrospun lignin-based carbon fibers at different carbonization temperatures and the influence of heat treatments at temperatures ranging from 900 to 1600 ºC. The influence of the addition of phosphoric acid in the initial electrospinning solution on the structural ordering, electrical conductivity and porosity development of the final carbon fibers is studied in detail. Alcell lignin fibers were electrospun using a coaxial electrospinning device following the procedure previously reported by our research group. Electrospun H3PO4-lignin fibers were prepared in the same device by addition of phosphoric acid to the lignin solution using mass ratios of 0.1 and 0.3. The electrospun fibers were stabilized in air at 200 ºC, using a slow heating rate and carbonized under inert atmosphere at temperatures between 500 and 900 ºC. In addition, the fibers carbonized at 900 ºC were heat treated at temperatures between 1200 and 1600 ºC. The high temperature heat treatment removes most of the heteroatoms (O, P) for both carbon fibers. However, the surface area of the phosphorous containing carbon fibers is mostly preserved after the heat treatment, while a large porosity shrinkage is observed for the pure lignin-derived fibers. Thus, microporous carbon fibers with large electrical conductivity values have been obtained by heat treatment at 1600 ºC of P-containing electrospun carbon fibers.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Towards Modelling QFT in Real Metamaterials: Singular Potentials and Self-Adjoint Extensions

[EN] Solutions of the one-dimensional Schrödinger equation are found when point interactions of the type aδ(x − q) + bδ'(x − q) are placed either in a couple of points or in a regular lattice. The results obtained in the present study are a first step toward a rigorous mathematical model of real metamaterials is Solid State Physics

Biomass waste carbon materials for post-combustion CO2 capture

Low-carbon energy systems based on carbon capture and storage (CCS) have become of great interest due to the imperative necessity of mitigating the carbon footprint derived from the currently fossil fuels-based energy technologies. In this sense, post-combustion CO2 adsorption over porous solids results particularly attractive from several viewpoints. In a green context, the use of carbon-based materials as adsorbents would entail important economic and environmental profits, such as the valorization of different types of biomass and lignocellulosic waste. In this work, six carbon materials were prepared from four types of low cost biomass residues. Electrospun carbon fibers, FCL, and a char, GCL, were obtained from Alcell® lignin. Two activated carbons, GAS and GAWBa, resulted from physical activation of olive stones and plywood waste, respectively. Finally, another activated carbon, GAL, and an activated carbon cloth, CAD, were synthesized by chemical activation of lignin and a denim cloth. These materials were evaluated as potential adsorbents for CO2 capture under post-combustion conditions by means of equilibrium and dynamic experiments (fixed-bed system). Moreover, the regeneration capacity of the samples was also studied. At 101.3 kPa, the samples displayed CO2 capacities between 2.0 and 3.1 mmol/g. Meaningfully, the uptake values, at typical CO2 pressures in post-combustion applications (c.a. 15 kPa), remain in the range of 0.7 to 1.2 mmol/g, which are comparable to those of other complex and appealing materials. Additionally, a thorough characterization of the porous structure of the different adsorbents provided new insights into the influence of the pore size distribution on the CO2 capture capacity. CO2 retention capacities correlate well with the narrow micropore volume derived from the CO2 adsorption data at 0 ºC, VDRCO2, at 101.3 kPa (Figure 2). In contrast, at 15 kPa, analysis of the cumulative pore volumes of the samples pointed out that only pores of sizes below 0.7 nm are relevant for adsorption. Under dynamic conditions, the studied materials also showed remarkable adsorptive behaviors. For instance, the lignin-derived carbon fiber (FCL) exhibited a capacity value higher than 1.3 mmol/g.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

A-DInSAR Monitoring of Landslide and Subsidence Activity: A Case of Urban Damage in Arcos de la Frontera, Spain

Terrain surface displacements at a site can be induced by more than one geological process. In this work, we use advanced differential interferometry SAR (A-DInSAR) to measure ground deformation in Arcos de la Frontera (SW Spain), where severe damages related to landslide activity and subsidence have occurred in recent years. The damages are concentrated in two residential neighborhoods constructed between 2001 and 2006. One of the neighborhoods, called La Verbena, is located at the head of an active retrogressive landslide that has an extension of around 0.17 × 106 m2 and developed in weathered clayey soils. Landslide motion has caused building deterioration since they were constructed. After a heavy rainfall period in winter 2009–2010, the movement was accelerated, worsening the situation. The other neighborhood, Pueblos Blancos, was built over a poorly compacted artificial filling undergoing a spatially variable consolidation process which has also led to severe damage to buildings. For both cases, a short set of C-band data from the “ENVISAT 2010+” project has been used to monitor surface displacement for the period spanning April 2011–January 2012. In this work we characterize the mechanism of both ground deformation processes using in situ and remote sensing techniques along with a detailed geological interpretation and urban damage distribution

Anthropogenic ecosystem disturbance and the recovery debt

Ecosystem recovery from anthropogenic disturbances, either without human intervention or assisted by ecological restoration, is increasingly occurring worldwide. As ecosystems progress through recovery, it is important to estimate any resulting deficit in biodiversity and functions. Here we use data from 3,035 sampling plots worldwide, to quantify the interim reduction of biodiversity and functions occurring during the recovery process (that is, the 'recovery debt'). Compared with reference levels, recovering ecosystems run annual deficits of 46-51% for organism abundance, 27-33% for species diversity, 32-42% for carbon cycling and 31-41% for nitrogen cycling. Our results are consistent across biomes but not across degrading factors. Our results suggest that recovering and restored ecosystems have less abundance, diversity and cycling of carbon and nitrogen than 'undisturbed' ecosystems, and that even if complete recovery is reached, an interim recovery debt will accumulate. Under such circumstances, increasing the quantity of less-functional ecosystems through ecological restoration and offsetting are inadequate alternatives to ecosystem protection