Water Management Adaptation to Climate Change in Mediterranean Semiarid Regions by Desalination and Photovoltaic Solar Energy, Spain

[EN] Integration of renewable energy sources and water production technologies is a must when facing water scarcity problems in semiarid regions, such as Mediterranean regions. The use of additional water resources and production methods, such as reclaimed water and, more specifically, desalinated water, means present and necessary water resources to introduce in the water balances to attend to water demands within a global warming and droughting scenario. These solutions have the inconvenience of energy/power needs and costs. However, the development of renewable energies like photovoltaic solar energy, with lower and lower costs and greater efficiency, makes these economically feasible facilities, reaching competitive production costs for marine or sea desalinated water by around 50% of reduction in energy costs and 20¿30% of savings in final water production cost. This paper presents a practical project or action focused on the integration of renewable energies and new water resources by introducing a Photovoltaic Energy Plant (PVEP) as an energy source to feed a Seawater Desalination Treatment Plant (SWDTP). The PV facility is designed to cover all the energy demanded using the SWDTP during the day, and even studying the possibility of selling the energy production exceeds and injecting them into the energy supply network, covering the needs of buying energy needed during the high period where there is no photovoltaic energy production. Thus, savings related to energy costs and even incomes coming from energy sales mean an important reduction in operation costs or expenditures (OPEX), which makes economically feasible and sustainable the investment and the final price of water produced within the Mutxamel SWDTP. The final reduction cost in water desalination reaches 25% on average.Gómez Martínez, G.; Pérez-Martín, MÁ. (2023). Water Management Adaptation to Climate Change in Mediterranean Semiarid Regions by Desalination and Photovoltaic Solar Energy, Spain. Water. 15(18):1-28. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15183239128151

Levantamiento topográfico del Rectorado y edificio de La Milagrosa

El presente trabajo consiste en la realización de un proyecto fin de carrera, teniendo carácter obligatorio la realización del mismo, es decir, es requisito imprescindible su realización para la obtención del título: Ingeniero técnico en obras Públicas, especialidad en Hidrología. Mediante este proyecto fin de carrera se pretende llevar a cabo la realización de un plano, hallando la posición de sus coordenadas. Se trabajará en la zona donde se encuentra el edificio del Rectorado de la UPCT, así como la plaza del cronista Isidoro Valverde (C/ San Diego) y Plaza Jaime Bosch. Para poder llevar esto a cabo, se realizará la medición de la posición de los diferentes puntos de interés mediante el uso de estación total. Para poder trabajar y transformar los datos medidos utilizaremos una serie de programas informáticos, tales como Excel y Autocad 2010 entre otros, aunque destacamos dichos programas por el interés a lo largo de nuestro proyecto. En este bloque describiremos de manera detallada los procesos de nuestro proyecto a lo largo del tiempo. Antes de empezar con la planificación de dicho proyecto se explicaran algunos conceptos necesarios para una correcta comprensión del mismo, aunque la explicación más detallada, a modo justificativo y analítico de todos los resultados, será incluida en el siguiente bloque (Anejos a la memoria). Allí se desarrollarán todas las explicaciones de cualquier índole, dejando en este capítulo una explicación de las fases que tiene nuestro proyecto y dando a conocer su emplazamiento, equipos empleados, situación geográfica y mediciones de campo.Escuela de Ingeniería de Caminos y MinasUniversidad Politécnica de Cartagen

New consumption models for audiovisual products: the effects of binge-watching on young university students

La industria del entretenimiento ha contemplado desde sus inicios al espectador como mero sujeto pasivo. Sin embargo, la disrupción tecnológica que supuso la digitalización de la señal audiovisual ha convertido a los consumidores de estos productos en usuarios activos. Este cambio de paradigma técnico ha favorecido la aparición de una nueva modalidad de acceso que ha modificado, de forma irresoluble, la relación entre público y contenido. El origen de esta revolución se fundamenta en el uso masivo, a través de Internet, de una serie de instrumentos (redes p2p, streaming de vídeo, repositorios digitales, etc.) que permiten al internauta el libre intercambio de cualquier material fílmico fuera de toda restricción comercial. De esta forma, el incremento exponencial de títulos disponibles en Internet para su consumo inmediato, de fácil acceso y a coste cero o muy reducido, ha estimulado una nueva forma de consumo, sobre todo en lo referente a las ficciones televisivas en serie. Este comportamiento anómalo, definido como binge-watching, ha modificado la conducta y el comportamiento de los consumidores, lo que repercute de forma directa en los medios de comunicación tradicionales. Además este nuevo fenómeno repercute en los hábitos de comportamiento del espectador (higiene, sueño, etc.) en pos del visionado ininterrumpido de su contenido preferido. Así, partiendo del paradigma de los Usos y Efectos y basando la observación en un estudio empírico, el objetivo principal de esta investigación es analizar los efectos que este nuevo modelo de consumo audiovisual tiene sobre los jóvenes universitarios.The entertainment industry has seen the viewer as a taxable person. However, technological disruption that was the digitization of audiovisual signal has become consumers of these products in active users. This paradigm shift has led to the emergence of a new mode of access that has changed the relationship between audience and content. The origin of this revolution is the widespread use of Internet tools (P2P networks, streaming, cyberlockers, etc.) that allow the free exchange of any audiovisual product outside of any trade restriction. Thus, the exponential increase of titles available online for immediate consumption, easy access and zero or very low cost, has stimulated a new form of consumption, especially in relation to television fiction series. This state, defined as binge-watching, has modified consumer behavior, which has a direct impact on traditional media. In addition, this new phenomenon affects the behavior of viewer habits (hygiene, sleep, etc.) for uninterrupted viewing of audiovisual products. Thus, from the theory of Uses and Effects and basing observation on an empirical study, the main focus of this research is to analyze the effects that this new model of audiovisual consumption has on young students

Simulating FRSN P Systems with Real Numbers in P-Lingua on sequential and CUDA platforms

Fuzzy Reasoning Spiking Neural P systems (FRSN P systems, for short) is a variant of Spiking Neural P systems incorporating fuzzy logic elements that make it suitable to model fuzzy diagnosis knowledge and reasoning required for fault diagnosis applications. In this sense, several FRSN P system variants have been proposed, dealing with real numbers, trapezoidal numbers, weights, etc. The model incorporating real numbers was the first introduced [13], presenting promising applications in the field of fault diagnosis of electrical systems. For this variant, a matrix-based algorithm was provided which, when executed on parallel computing platforms, fully exploits the model maximally parallel capacities. In this paper we introduce a P-Lingua framework extension to parse and simulate FRSN P systems with real numbers. Two simulators, implementing a variant of the original matrix-based simulation algorithm, are provided: a sequential one (written in Java), intended to run on traditional CPUs, and a parallel one, intended to run on CUDAenabled devices.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2012-3743

Modeling Global Levelized Cost of Hydrogen Production Considering Country-Specific Investment Risks

Hydrogen is central to the global energy transition when produced at low emissions. This paper introduces a renewable hydrogen production system model (HPSM) that optimizes a hybrid hydrogen production system (HPS) on a worldwide 50x50 km grid, considering country-specific interest rates. Besides the renewable energy's impact on the HPS design, we analyze the effect of country-specific interest rates on the levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) production. LCOH production ranges between 2.7 Euro/kg and 28.4 Euro/kg, with an average of 9.1 Euro/kg. Over one third (40.0%) of all cells have an installed PV capacity share between 50% and 70%, and 76.4% have a hybrid configuration. Hybrid HPSs can significantly reduce the LCOH production compared to non-hybrid designs, whereas country-specific interest rates lead to significant increases in the LCOH production. Hydrogen storage is deployed rather than battery storage to balance production and demand.Comment: 32 pages, 14 figures, submitted to International Journal of Hydrogen Energ

Solving the N-Queens Puzzle with P Systems

The N-queens puzzle consists on placing N queens on an N x Ngrid in such way that no two queens are on the same row, column or diagonal line. In this paper we present a family of P systems with active membranes (one P system for each value of N) that provides all the possible solutions to the puzzle.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2006-13425Junta de Andalucía P08-TIC-0420

Experimental analysis of physical magnitudes through films and its application in the classroom

En este trabajo mostramos cómo nuestros alumnos de secundaria y bachillerato han podido realizar, en los últimos 10 cursos, investigaciones sobre fenómenos o situaciones físicas de la vida cotidiana cercanas a sus intereses. El procedimiento consiste en realizar grabaciones de video digital y la posterior aplicación de un programa informático (Avimèca) que permite seguir la escena fotograma a fotograma asociando valores numéricos a cada punto elegido para poder analizar ciertas magnitudes físicas. En contra de lo que puede parecer, el procedimiento es sencillo y los elementos empleados son relativamente económicos. En cualquier caso, para facilitar la tarea a otros profesores, se agrega una guía del programa que, por otra parte, es de acceso gratuito. Además, se detalla el modo en que se hemos implementado esta actividad en el aula y enumeramos las dificultades encontradas, así como las soluciones propuestas.In this paper we show how our Secondary and High School students have been able to research phenomena or physical situation of their real lives closer to their interests in the last 10 years. The procedure is to make digital video recordings and then applying a computer program (Avimèca), which monitors the scene frame by frame and attaching numerical values to each selected point in order to analyze some physical magnitudes. Contrary to what may seem, the procedure is simple and relatively inexpensive elements are used. In any case, to make it easier for other teachers, a program guide is added which is free-access. In addition, the way in which we implemented this classroom activity is detailed, listing the difficulties encountered and the corresponding proposed solutions

Myopia and Other Visual Disorders in Children

Depto. de Optometría y VisiónFac. de Óptica y OptometríaTRUEpu

Stereotaxic cutting of post-mortem human brains for neuroanatomical studies

Stereotaxis is widely used in clinical neurosurgery, neuroradiosurgery, and neuroimaging. Yet, maps of brain structures obtained from post-mortem human brains are not usually presented in known stereotaxic coordinates. Post-mortem brain data given in stereotaxic coordinates would facilitate comparisons with in vivo human neuroimages and would also facilitate intra and inter-experiment comparisons. In this article, we present a crafted instrument for stereotaxic cutting of post-mortem human brain hemispheres. The instrument consists of a transparent methacrylate plate facing a mirror, four legs, and lateral regularly spaced columns permitting the insertion of large knives in-between the columns. This instrument can be built in any laboratory to obtain human brain slabs in the stereotaxic space of Talairach and Tournoux. We explain in detail the procedure for stereotaxic cutting of human brain hemispheres in the coronal plane, as well as the basis for calculating stereotaxic coordinates of histological sections obtained following the stereotaxic cutting protoco