Who is willing to pay for science? On the relationship between public perception of science and the attitude to public funding of science

This article examines the relationship between the general public's understanding of science and the attitude towards public funding of scientific research. It applies a multivariate and discriminant analysis (Wilks' Lambda), in addition to a more commonly used bivariate analysis (Cramer's V), to data compiled from the Third National Survey on the Social Perception of Science and Technology in Spain (FECYT, 2006). The general conclusion is that the multivariate analysis produces information complementary to the bivariate analysis, and that the variables commonly applied in public perception studies have limited predictive value with respect to the attitude towards public funding of scientific research. Keywords: public attitude to science, public funding of science, public perception of scienc

Intelligent Methods for Characterization of Electrical Power Quality Signals using Higher Order Statistical Features

This paper considers a few important techniques classification for to identify several power quality disturbances. For this purpose, a process based in HOS has been realized to extract features that help in classification. In this stage the geometrical pattern established via higher-order statistical measurements is obtained, and this pattern is function of the amplitudes and frequencies of the power quality disturbances associated to the 50-Hz power-line. Once the features are managed will be segmented to form training and test sets and them will be applied in the statistical methods used to perform automatic classification of PQ disturbances. The best technique of those compared is selected according to correlation and mistake rates

Power quality events detection using fourth-order spectra

This paper introduces the use of a fourth-order frequency-domain statistical estimator, the spectral kurtosis (SK), in the field of power-quality analysis. The research has been organized in the frame of a research national project and points towards the implementation of these techniques into an automatic platform to perform PQ analysis in power plants and power inverters. Higher-order statistics in the frequency domain manage to distinguish 3 types of electrical anomalies (sags, swells and transients), with an accuracy of 83%

Exogenous Measurements from Basic Meteorological Stations forWind Speed Forecasting

This research presents a comparative analysis of wind speed forecasting methods applied to perform 1 h-ahead forecasting. The main significant development has been the introduction of low-quality measurements as exogenous information to improve these predictions. Eight prediction models have been assessed; three of these models [persistence, autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and multiple linear regression] are used as references, and the remaining five, based on neural networks, are evaluated on the basis of two procedures. Firstly, four quality indices are assessed (the Pearson’s correlation coefficient, the index of agreement, the mean absolute error and the mean squared error). Secondly, an analysis of variance test and multiple comparison procedure are conducted. The findings indicate that a backpropagation network with five neurons in the hidden layer is the best model obtained with respect to the reference models. The pair of improvements (mean absolute-mean squared error) obtained are 29.10%–56.54%, 28.15%–53.99% and 4.93%–14.38%, for the persistence, ARIMA and multiple linear regression models, respectively. The experimental results reported in this paper show that traditional agricultural measurements enhance the predictions

LED street lighting: A power quality comparison among street light technologies

High-pressure sodium lamps are currently the main lamps used in public lighting. However, the possibility of using high-power light emitting diode (LEDs) for street lighting is growing continuously due to their greater energy efficiency, robustness, long life and light control. The aim of this paper is to study the power quality of high-power lighting networks based on LED and high-pressure sodium lamps. Both electromagnetic and dimmable electronic ballasts, which can dim the lamp output smoothly and uniformly, have been used connected to high-pressure sodium lamps. High-pressure sodium lamps connected to electronic equipment have been tested with different arc power levels using dimming on a 230V power supply. The study presented in this paper is completely based on measurements, including harmonic currents in the frequency range up to 150 kHz for all the technologies. The main results show a broadband spectrum in LED lamps which confirms other research in Fuorescent lamps powered by high-frequency ballasts. Results also indicate a decrease in the harmonic value with increasing harmonic order, and a decrease in the harmonic value at half load (60%) compared with full load (100%). Although total harmonic distortion of the current is lower with highpressure sodium lamps connected to electronic rather than electromagnetic ballasts, LED lamps achieved the lowest total harmonic distortion of curren

The MARCONI-3 deep seismic reflection profile: structure of the north Pyrenean foreland at the eastern part of the Bay of Biscay

The MARCONI-3 profile denotes that the structure of the North Pyrenean foreland at the western part of the Parentis Basin consists of a wedge of uppermost Cretaceous to Cenozoic synorogenic sediments lying on the top of a thinned continental crust with a major Mesozoic Basin to the north, the Parentis Basin, and a coeval structural high to the south, the Landes High. The Parentis Basin appears bounded southwards by a major normal fault. It is filled by a thick carbonate succession affected by a salt ridge and diapirs formed during the Albian-Late Cretaceous and squeezed during the late Eocene-middle Miocene. The Landes High includes a thin pre-Upper Cretaceous cover which, together with the synorogenic sediments, is deformed by a thrust wedge that constitutes the north-Pyrenean front. This overall structure evidences that the Mesozoic extension played an important role both in the location and features of the north-Pyrenean contractional deformation. Specially, the Alpine structure in the Parentis Basin denotes that the Landes High acted as a buffer for the north propagation of the Pyrenean deformation until early Miocene and vanished afterwards during the last stages of Pyrenean development when some basement faults reactivated in the Parentis Basin

An Embedded System in Smart Inverters for Power Quality and Safety Functionality

The electricity sector is undergoing an evolution that demands the development of a network model with a high level of intelligence, known as a Smart Grid. One of the factors accelerating these changes is the development and implementation of renewable energy. In particular, increased photovoltaic generation can affect the network’s stability. One line of action is to provide inverters with a management capacity that enables them to act upon the grid in order to compensate for these problems. This paper describes the design and development of a prototype embedded system able to integrate with a photovoltaic inverter and provide it with multifunctional ability in order to analyze power quality and operate with protection. The most important subsystems of this prototype are described, indicating their operating fundamentals. This prototype has been tested with class A protocols according to IEC 61000-4-30 and IEC 62586-2. Tests have also been carried out to validate the response time in generating orders and alarm signals for protections. The highlights of these experimental results are discussed. Some descriptive aspects of the integration of the prototype in an experimental smart inverter are also commented upon

Neuroprotective fragment C of tetanus toxin modulates IL-6 in an ALS mouse model

Neuroinflammation plays a significant role in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) pathology, leading to the development of therapies targeting inflammation in recent years. Our group has studied the tetanus toxin C-terminal fragment (TTC) as a therapeutic molecule, showing neuroprotective properties in the SOD1G93A mouse model. However, it is unknown whether TTC could have some effect on inflammation. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of TTC on the regulation of inflammatory mediators to elucidate its potential role in modulating inflammation occurring in ALS. After TTC treatment in SOD1G93A mice, levels of eotaxin-1, interleukin (IL)-2, IL-6 and macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP)-1 alpha (ff) and galectin-1 were analyzed by immunoassays in plasma samples, whilst protein expression of caspase-1, IL-1β, IL-6 and NOD-, LRR- and pyrin domain-containing protein 3 (NLRP3) was measured in the spinal cord, extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscle and soleus (SOL) muscle. The results showed reduced levels of IL-6 in spinal cord, EDL and SOL in treated SOD1G93A mice. In addition, TTC showed a different role in the modulation of NLRP3 and caspase-1 depending on the tissue analyzed. In conclusion, our results suggest that TTC could have a potential anti-inflammatory effect by reducing IL-6 levels in tissues drastically affected by the disease. However, further research is needed to study more in depth the anti-inflammatory effect of TTC in ALS

The North Pyrenean front and related foreland basin along the Bay of Biscay: constrains from the MARCONI deep seismic reflection survey

Profile interpretation of MARCONI seismic profiles show that two domains exist in the Bay of Biscay with a different Pyrenean and north-foreland structure: the eastern, Basque-Parentis and the western, Cantabrian domains. In the eastern one, the North Pyrenean front is located close to the Spanish coast and the northern foreland of the Pyrenees is constituted by a continental crust thinned by Early Cretaceous extensional structures. In the western, Cantabrian domain, the North Pyrenean front is shifted to the north and belongs to a thrust imbricated stack deforming a foreland basin which lies on the top of the Lower Cretaceous oceanic or transitional crust that floors the Bay of Biscay abyssal plain. The coincidence of the transition between these two domains with the eastern border of this abyssal plain denotes that differences along strike of the Pyrenean structure are related to a dramatic change in the nature of the subducted crust from continental to the east, to oceanic or transitional westwards. Thus, the rift system developed between Iberia and Eurasia during the Early Cretaceous appears as a major factor controlling not only the location and features of most of the Pyrenean thrust sheets but also the overall structure of the chain

The deep seismic reflection MARCONI-3 profile: Role of extensional Mesozoic structure during the Pyrenean contractional deformation at the eastern part of the Bay of Biscay

The new MARCONI-3 deep seismic profile allows recognition of the upper crustal structure of the eastern part of the Bay of Biscay and the main features of its Alpine geodynamic evolution. It denotes that the easternmost part of the Bay of Biscay consists of a thick wedge of uppermost Cretaceous to Cenozoic synorogenic sediments lying unconformably on the top of a thinned continental crust with the Mesozoic Parentis Basin to the north and the coeval Landes High to the south. The Parentis Basin appears as a major half-graben bounded southwards by a north-dipping planar fault. It is filled by a thick sequence of Jurassic-Upper Cretaceous carbonates affected by salt domes and squeezed diapirs made up of Triassic evaporites and mudstones. These salt tectonic structures also affect the overlying uppermost Cretaceous to Lower Miocene synorogenic deposits which are folded upon these structures. The Landes High includes a thin pre-Upper Cretaceous cover tilted to the south. In the Basque shelf, it is deformed by a basement-involving thrust wedge emplaced during the Late Eocene- Miocene that constitutes the North-Pyrenean contractional front. Geometric relationships and thickness variations depict that this overall structure results from the following