¿Una estética de la energía?

La energía se ha convertido en uno de los grandes temas de la arquitectura, pero la incorporación de lo energético al diseño no suele ir más allá del simple trato con la técnica. En realidad, más que abrir un debate estético, el diálogo con la energía muchas veces lo ha cerrado, pues es frecuente que los asuntos relacionados con lo que en sentido amplio llamamos ‘termodinámica’ se pongan en manos de ‘especialistas’ poco dados a lucubraciones formales (profesionales del ‘bioclimatismo’, ingenieros y socioecólogos). El resultado ha sido una especie de escolástica tecnocrática que parece despreciar cuanto no se mida en los términos de lo que se denomina ‘sostenible’. Y también un tipo de funcionalismo, el ecológico, cuyo destino es repetir los errores de los viejos funcionalismos, en su confianza de encontrar la piedra filosofal que transmute la energía en forma construida, sin que en tal proceso parezca haber espacio para las mediaciones de tipo cultural. La conferencia repasará las mediaciones culturales y estéticas que competen a la relación de la arquitectura con la energía, preguntándose por la pertinencia de una ‘estética’ asociada a ella, con todas las contradicciones y paradojas que este término implica.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

The central parsecs of M87: jet emission and an elusive accretion disc

We present the first simultaneous spectral energy distribution (SED) of M87 core at a scale of 0.4 arcsec ($\sim 32\, \rm{pc}$) across the electromagnetic spectrum. Two separate, quiescent, and active states are sampled that are characterized by a similar featureless SED of power-law form, and that are thus remarkably different from that of a canonical active galactic nuclei (AGN) or a radiatively inefficient accretion source. We show that the emission from a jet gives an excellent representation of the core of M87 core covering ten orders of magnitude in frequency for both the active and the quiescent phases. The inferred total jet power is, however, one to two orders of magnitude lower than the jet mechanical power reported in the literature. The maximum luminosity of a thin accretion disc allowed by the data yields an accretion rate of $< 6 \times 10^{-5}\, \rm{M_\odot \, yr^{-1}}$, assuming 10% efficiency. This power suffices to explain M87 radiative luminosity at the jet-frame, it is however two to three order of magnitude below that required to account for the jet's kinetic power. The simplest explanation is variability, which requires the core power of M87 to have been two to three orders of magnitude higher in the last 200 yr. Alternatively, an extra source of power may derive from black hole spin. Based on the strict upper limit on the accretion rate, such spin power extraction requires an efficiency an order of magnitude higher than predicted from magnetohydrodynamic simulations, currently in the few hundred per cent range.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Fate of 15N-fertilizers in the soil-plant system of a forage rotation under conservation and plough tillage.

The long-term effect of conventional plough tillage (PT) and conservation minimum tillage (MT) on soil N (0-5, 5-15, 15-30, 30-45 and 45-60 cm), recovery efficiency of 15N-fertilizer (REN), plant N concentration and N exported with crops was evaluated during two years in a 14-year-old ryegrass-maize forage rotation. Adjacent PT (n=9) and MT (n=9) plots were randomly assigned in triplicate to three treatments to which 15NH4 15NO3 (10 atom % 15N) was applied in one of the three first fertilizations (15NOctober-, 15NMarch- and 15NMay-fertilizer), the others being done with unlabelled N. Plant N concentration (% N) was affected (p ryegrass-2 (1.9 ± 0.4%) > maize-2 (1.4 ± 0.1 %) > maize-1 (1.1 ± 0.2 %)] and the crop-tillage interaction (22 % of variance explained). Jointly considering all data, more 15N-fertilizer was recovered in the MT (25 ± 4 %) than in the PT soil profile (19 ± 6 %) at the end of the experiment whereas the N exported with the crops was unaffected by the tillage system and varied from 5-6 % (15NOctober-fertilizer) to 45-49% (15NMarchfertilizer) and 52-53 % (15NMay-fertilizer; despite only three instead of four subsequent crops were studied).The 15N unaccounted for in the case of 15NOctober-fertilizer (72 ± 5 %) was more than twice that in 15NMarch- (34 ± 7 %) and 15NMay-fertilizer (25 ± 14 %). Considering soil, site and weather conditions, denitrification and nitrate leaching during the ryegrass-1 crop were the most likely processes explaining the high losses of the 15NOctober-fertilizer. Results suggested a higher initial immobilization of the applied 15N in the soil organic matter (SOM) of MT, that reduces 15N availability to the first crop, followed by an increase of the residual availability of the fertilizer 15N to the subsequent 2-3 crops.Peer reviewe

IBSE: An OWL Interoperability Evaluation Infrastructure

The technology that supports the Semantic Web presents a great diversity and, whereas all the tools use different types of ontologies, not all of them share a common knowledge representation model, which may pose problems when they try to interoperate. The Knowledge Web European Network of Excellence is organizing a benchmarking of interoperability of ontology tools using OWL as interchange language with the goal of assessing and improving tool interoperability. This paper presents the development of IBSE, an evaluation infrastructure that allows executing automatically the benchmarking experiments and provides an easy way of analysing the results. Thus,including new tools into the evaluation infrastructure will be simple and straightforward

Impact of fire and post-fire management techniques on soil chemical properties

The effects of fire ( Control burned soil) and two emergency stabilisation techniques (grass Seeding and straw Mulching ) on 20 chemical characteristics were evaluated on 0 – 5 cm top-soils sampled 1, 90, 180 and 365 days after an experimental fi re in a steep shrubland of a temperate-humid region (NW Spain). Most part of pH (in H 2 O and KCl) variance was explained by the sampling date. No clear temporal trends were identi fi able for total soil C and N content, likely due to the large SOM pool in these soils; however, changes on soil δ 13 C were explained by the deposition of 13 C-depleted ashes, followed by its progressive erosion, while those on soil δ 15 N were a consequence of fi re induced N outputs. After the fi re, NH 4 + – N, P, Na, K, Mg, Ca, Mn, Cu, Zn and B concentrations increased, while those of NO 3 − – N, Al, Fe and Co did not vary significantly. Despite a significant decline with time, concentrations of Mg, Ca and Mn at the end of the study were still higher than in unburned soil, while those of K, Cu, Zn and B were similar to the pre-fire levels and those of NH 4 + – N, P and Na were below pre-fire values. Mulching and Seeding treatments for burned soil emergency stabilisation had significant effects on soil δ 15 N and extractable K, Mg and Ca, while data were inconclusive for their possible effects on the extractable Al, Fe and C

On the monitoring of surface displacement in connection with volcano reactivation in Tenerife, Canary Islands, using space techniques

Geodetic volcano monitoring in Tenerife has mainly focused on the Las Cañadas Caldera, where a geodetic micronetwork and a levelling profile are located. A sensitivity test of this geodetic network showed that it should be extended to cover the whole island for volcano monitoring purposes. Furthermore, InSAR allowed detecting two unexpected movements that were beyond the scope of the traditional geodetic network. These two facts prompted us to design and observe a GPS network covering the whole of Tenerife that was monitored in August 2000. The results obtained were accurate to one centimetre, and confirm one of the deformations, although they were not definitive enough to confirm the second one. Furthermore, new cases of possible subsidence have been detected in areas where InSAR could not be used to measure deformation due to low coherence. A first modelling attempt has been made using a very simple model and its results seem to indicate that the deformation observed and the groundwater level variation in the island may be related. Future observations will be necessary for further validation and to study the time evolution of the displacements, carry out interpretation work using different types of data (gravity, gases, etc) and develop models that represent the island more closely. The results obtained are important because they might affect the geodetic volcano monitoring on the island, which will only be really useful if it is capable of distinguishing between displacements that might be linked to volcanic activity and those produced by other causes. One important result in this work is that a new geodetic monitoring system based on two complementary techniques, InSAR and GPS, has been set up on Tenerife island. This the first time that the whole surface of any of the volcanic Canary Islands has been covered with a single network for this purpose. This research has displayed the need for further similar studies in the Canary Islands, at least on the islands which pose a greater risk of volcanic reactivation, such as Lanzarote and La Palma, where InSAR techniques have been used already