OPTIMAL RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR POLICIES TO MANAGE RISK UNDER UNCERTAINTY WITH ADAPTIVE CONTROL

The aim of this paper is to apply two adaptive control formulations under uncertainty, say open-loop and closed-loop, to the process of developing maintenance and repair policies for railway infrastructures. To establish the optimal maintenance and repair policies for railway lines, we use a previous design of risk model based on two factors: the criticality and the deterioration ratios of the facilities. Thus, our theory benefits from the Reliability Centered Management methodology application, but it also explicitly models uncertainty in characterizing a facility deterioration rate to decide the optimal policy to maintain the railway infrastructures. This may be the major contribution of this work. To verify the models presented, a computation study has been developed and tested for a real scenario: the railway line Villalba-Cercedilla in Madrid (Spain). Our results demonstrate again that applying any adaptive formulation, the cost of the railway lines maintenance shown is decreased. Moreover applying a Closed Loop Formulation the cost associated to the risk takes smaller values (40% less cost for the same risk than the deterministic approach), but with an Open Loop formulation the generated risk in the railway line is also smaller.

Femtosecond time-resolved phase-change microscopy and ablation threshold calculations to understand ultrafast laser ablation

El trabajo recoge experimentos realizados en una configuración sonda-prueba haciendo uso de un láser de femtosegundos, con el objetivo de comprender los fenómenos de ablación de materiales sólidos ras irradiación con láseres de pulso ultracorto.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Time-resolved laser-induced phase change microscopy: understanding laser-matter effects at the femtosecond scale

LA comunicación describe el desarrollo instrumental y las aplicaciones con un microscopio de cambio de fase con resolución de femtosegundos que se ha puesto a punto en el LAboratorio LAser de la UMAUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Novel Epstein-Barr virus-like particles incorporating gH/gL-EBNA1 or gB-LMP2 induce high neutralizing antibody titers and EBV-specific T-cell responses in immunized mice

Previous Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) prophylactic vaccines based on the major surface glycoprotein gp350/220 as an immunogen have failed to block viral infection in humans, suggesting a need to target other viral envelope glycoproteins. In this study, we reasoned that incorporating gH/gL or gB, critical glycoproteins for viral fusion and entry, on the surface of a virus-like particle (VLP) would be more immunogenic than gp350/220 for generating effective neutralizing antibodies to prevent viral infection of both epithelial and B cell lines. To boost the humoral response and trigger cell-mediated immunity, EBV nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1) and latent membrane protein 2 (LMP2), intracellular latency proteins expressed in all EBV-infected cells, were also included as critical components of the polyvalent EBV VLP. gH/gL-EBNA1 and gB-LMP2 VLPs were efficiently produced in Chinese hamster ovary cells, an FDA-approved vehicle for mass-production of biologics. Immunization with gH/gL-EBNA1 and gB-LMP2 VLPs without adjuvant generated both high neutralizing antibody titers in vitro and EBV-specific T-cell responses in BALB/c mice. These data demonstrate that will be invaluable not only in preventing EBV infection, but importantly, in preventing and treating the 200,000 cases of EBV-associated cancers that occur globally every year

seq2R: an R package to detect change points in DNA sequences

Identifying the mutational processes that shape the nucleotide composition of the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) is fundamental to better understand how these genomes evolve. Several methods have been proposed to analyze DNA sequence nucleotide composition and skewness, but most of them lack any measurement of statistical support or were not developed taking into account the specificities of mitochondrial genomes. A new methodology is presented, which is specifically developed for mtDNA to detect compositional changes or asymmetries (AT and CG skews) based on nonparametric regression models and their derivatives. The proposed method also includes the construction of confidence intervals, which are built using bootstrap techniques. This paper introduces an R package, known as seq2R, that implements the proposed methodology. Moreover, an illustration of the use of seq2R is provided using real data, specifically two publicly available complete mtDNAs: the human (Homo sapiens) sequence and a nematode (Radopholus similis) mitogenome sequence.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. MTM2011-23204Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. PID2020-118101GB-I00Xunta de Galicia | Ref. 10PXIB 300 068 P

Temporal and energetic scale of solid matter interaction phenomena occurring during femtosecond ablation of solids

Ablation using femtosecond lasers exhibits significant differences with that at the nanosecond timescale, where the concurrence of photochemical and photothermal processes taking place during the photon absorption govern the process. In the ultrashort regime, the several phenomena involved in the laser-matter interaction are markedly different. Thus, a prior comprehension of the processes is required in order to extend the range of current applications and improve the analytical results. Our current studies are facing fundamental and applied studies with the aim of better understanding laser-matter interaction processes in condensed phase using femtosecond lasers. To achieve this goal, we have designed experimental strategies expecting to improve the knowledge of the timescale and onset generation of chemical species and surface alterations during femtosecond ablation of solids. Time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy, time-of-flight mass spectrometry and time-resolved phase-change microscopy are currently implemented. The combined use of the cited techniques is allowing the experimental determination of the energy threshold, temporal regime and macroscopic effects occurring in a variety of materials as a consequence of the interaction with an ultra-short laser pulse. The core of the experiment is a 80 Mhz, 100 nJ, 400 fs Ti-Saphire oscillator that is additionally subjected to chirped pulse amplification to produce an output of 3,5 mJ at 35 fs and a maximum repletion rate of 1 KHz. Different wavelengths (800, 400 and 266 nm) are achievable. An intensified CCD and a dual-state reflectron equipped with a cassegrain reflective optics are used for the analysis of the photons and ion generated after laser irradiation. Additionally, a pump-probe microscope with a temporal resolution better than 500 fs has been designed to allow time-resolved studies of phase-change in the ablated samples.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Design, Implementation, and Empirical Validation of a Framework for Remote Car Driving Using a Commercial Mobile Network

Despite the fact that autonomous driving systems are progressing in terms of their automation levels, the achievement of fully self-driving cars is still far from realization. Currently, most new cars accord with the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Level 2 of automation, which requires the driver to be able to take control of the car when needed: for this reason, it is believed that between now and the achievement of fully automated self-driving car systems, there will be a transition, in which remote driving cars will be a reality. In addition, there are tele-operation-use cases that require remote driving for health or safety reasons. However, there is a lack of detailed design and implementation available in the public domain for remote driving cars: therefore, in this work we propose a functional framework for remote driving vehicles. We implemented a prototype, using a commercial car. The prototype was connected to a commercial 4G/5G mobile network, and empirical experiments were conducted, to validate the prototype’s functions, and to evaluate its performance in real-world driving conditions. The design, implementation, and empirical evaluation provided detailed technical insights into this important research and innovation area.This research was funded in part by the EU Horizon 2020 5G-PPP 5G-INDUCE project (“Open cooperative 5G experimentation platforms for the industrial sector NetApps”) under grant number H2020-ICT-2020-2/101016941, by the EU Horizon Europe INCODE project (“Programming platform for intelligent collaborative deployments over heterogeneous edge-IoT environments”) under grant number HORIZON-CL4-2022-DATA-01-03/101093069, and by the EU Horizon Europe project INCODE: programming platform for intelligent collaborative deployments over heterogeneous edge-IoT environments (HORIZON-CL4-2022-DATA-01-03/101093069)