A Low-Cost FPGA-Based Test and Diagnosis Architecture for SRAMs

The continues improvement of manufacturing technologies allows the realization of integrated circuits containing an ever increasing number of transistors. A major part of these devices is devoted to realize SRAM blocks. Test and diagnosis of SRAM circuits are therefore an important challenge for improving quality of next generation integrated circuits. This paper proposes a flexible platform for testing and diagnosis of SRAM circuits. The architecture is based on the use of a low cost FPGA based board allowing high diagnosability while keeping costs at a very low leve

Implementation of the Project Based Learning Methodology in the "Materials. Design and Restyling" Subject

[EN] The implementation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) resulted in a change in the concept of teaching-learning, from a traditional teacher-centered model to a current model focused on student learning. In this new model, the student takes an active role in acquiring competencies to process information, while the teacher is the facilitator of learning. In competence-based teaching, knowledge is approached through its interrelationship with other elements and at the same time bringing into play both knowledge and skills, abilities, and values, thus contributing to learning of great relevance to be transferred to the professional activity. Within the framework of the EHEA, the Project Based Learning (PBL) methodology is an effective tool for the acquisition of knowledge and skills that society is demanding from students, preparing them for their professional future. The PBL is a learning methodology in continuous growth and evolution, becoming one of the most used methodologies in the current educational systems. This methodology is focused on the resolution of projects based on real problems by the students, mainly combined in groups. The PBL methodology allows students to acquire knowledge, develop different specific skills, increase their analysis and synthesis capabilities, and the development of research skills. In addition, PBL offers a number of advantages, as it allows students to become protagonists of their own learning, encouraging teamwork and leadership, and generating an active, dynamic, and participatory teaching environment in which feedback occurs between teachers and students, contributing to improved student learning. For all these reasons, it is considered that this learning methodology can be interesting and appropriate for its implementation in university degree subjects, as it allows students to prepare for real situations that they will later experience in their professional lives. The main aim of the present work is to describe the experience of the application of the PBL learning method in the subject of "Materials. Design and Restyling", an optative subject framed within the module of "Design and Engineering of Vehicles" belonging to the Mechanical Engineering Degree taught at the Higher Polytechnic School of Alcoy of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). In this case for the implementation of the PBL methodology, the redesign and analysis of a part of the automotive sector was proposed as a project to be carried out by the students.This article has been supported by Universitat Politècnica de València, particularly by the Vicerectorate for Digital Resources and Documentation (Vicerrectorado de Recursos Digitales y Documentación) and Vice-Rectorate for Studies, Quality and Accreditation (Vicerrectorado de Estudios, Calidad y Acreditación) under the Call for Learning + Teaching (Convocatoria A+D2019: Aprendizaje + Docencia. Proyectos de Innovación y Mejora Educativa) and Project Code: A157. The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Institute of Educational Sciences (Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación), the Evaluation and Monitoring Commission for Educational Innovation and Improvement Projects (Comisión de Evaluación y Seguimiento de Proyectos de Innovación y Mejora Educativa (CESPIME) and Escuela Politécnica Superior de Alcoy.Garcia-Garcia, D.; Montanes, N.; Quiles-Carrillo, L.; Ivorra-Martínez, J.; Sanchis, R. (2021). Implementation of the Project Based Learning Methodology in the "Materials. Design and Restyling" Subject. INTED proceedings (Online). 9883-9891. https://doi.org/10.21125/inted.2021.2057S9883989

Model Design and Calculation with Polymeric and Composite Materials through Project-Based Learning

[EN] The new educational paradigm requires new active methodologies to fulfil the market demanding needs. Students need to join the competitive labor market with optimal skills to achieve all their professional objectives. That is why the current teaching-learning process requires disruptive changes through the implementation of innovative methodologies such as the Project-Based Learning (PBL). The PBL is a methodology that allows students to acquire the key knowledge and skills through the elaboration of a project that gives response to a real problem. According to the Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience (Dale, 1946) the PBL is an active methodology since it is located at the basis of the pyramid in the layer of: `Direct Purposeful Experience ¿ Go through a Direct Experience¿. Based on Dale¿s results, students will remember 90% of what they do as they perform the project. In light of this, and with the main goal of prepare suitable professionals, in the Mechanical Engineering Degree of the Universitat Politècnica de València, a PBL model has been defined. This model involves the following three subjects: (i) Polymer Matrix Composite Materials Engineering; (ii) Manufacturing processes of polymer matrix composite materials and (iii) Advanced design with polymers: Project with composite materials. All these subjects are taught in the second semester of the 4th year of the Mechanical Engineering Degree. The PBL model, which consists of the design and calculation of a pressure tank by using CAD/CAE tools such as SolidWorks, will be developed concurrently among the three subjects. In this article, the PBL model is defined as well as the steps and considerations that have been followed and taken into account for its definition.This article has been supported by the Vice-rectorate for Digital Resources and Documentation (Vicerrectorado de Recursos Digitales y Documentación) and Vice-Rectorate for Studies, Quality and Accreditation (Vicerrectorado de Estudios, Calidad y Acreditación) under the Call for Learning + Teaching (Convocatoria Aprendizaje + Docencia (A+D 2019)) and Project Code: 1678-A. The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Institute of Educational Sciences (Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación) of Universitat Politècnica de València, the Evaluation and Monitoring Commission for Educational Innovation and Improvement Projects (Comisión de Evaluación y Seguimiento de Proyectos de Innovación y Mejora Educativa (CESPIME)) and Escuela Politécnica Superior de AlcoyBalart, R.; Montanes, N.; Quiles-Carrillo, L.; Jordá-Gisbert, S.; Sanchis-Gomis, HC.; Sanchis, R. (2020). Model Design and Calculation with Polymeric and Composite Materials through Project-Based Learning. EDULEARN Proceedings (Internet). 3979-3986. https://doi.org/10.21125/edulearn.2020.1076S3979398

Single cell profiling of COVID-19 patients: an international data resource from multiple tissues

In late 2019 and through 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, presenting both scientific and medical challenges associated with understanding and treating a previously unknown disease. To help address the need for great understanding of COVID-19, the scientific community mobilized and banded together rapidly to characterize SARS-CoV-2 infection, pathogenesis and its distinct disease trajectories. The urgency of COVID-19 provided a pressing use-case for leveraging relatively new tools, technologies, and nascent collaborative networks. Single-cell biology is one such example that has emerged over the last decade as a powerful approach that provides unprecedented resolution to the cellular and molecular underpinnings of biological processes. Early foundational work within the single-cell community, including the Human Cell Atlas, utilized published and unpublished data to characterize the putative target cells of SARS-CoV-2 sampled from diverse organs based on expression of the viral receptor ACE2 and associated entry factors TMPRSS2 and CTSL (Muus et al., 2020; Sungnak et al., 2020; Ziegler et al., 2020). This initial characterization of reference data provided an important foundation for framing infection and pathology in the airway as well as other organs. However, initial community analysis was limited to samples derived from uninfected donors and other previously-sampled disease indications. This report provides an overview of a single-cell data resource derived from samples from COVID-19 patients along with initial observations and guidance on data reuse and exploration

The hydrodynamic efficiency of laser-target acceleration

The acceleration of a thin foil using a laser pulse is studied. It is shown that the acceleration efficiency eta H is heavily dependent on the behaviour of the corona ejected by the foil: there is no universal relation eta H( Delta M/M0),M0 and Delta M being initial foil mass and ablated mass, respectively. Known results on the coronal flow are used to check the theory against experimental data available in the literature; effects due to both a non-planar corona, and the time-dependence of the laser irradiance, are considered. The agreement with experiments is substantially better than that for previous analyses. Acceleration of thin spherical shells is also discussed

Multicolour photometry for exoplanet candidate validation

Context. The TESS and PLATO missions are expected to find vast numbers of new transiting planet candidates. However, only a fraction of these candidates will be legitimate planets, and the candidate validation will require a significant amount of follow-up resources. Radial velocity follow-up can be carried out only for the most promising candidates around bright, slowly rotating, stars. Thus, before devoting RV resources to candidates, they need to be vetted using cheaper methods, and, in the cases for which an RV confirmation is not feasible, the candidate's true nature needs to be determined based on these alternative methods alone. Aims. We study the applicability of multicolour transit photometry in the validation of transiting planet candidates when the candidate signal arises from a real astrophysical source. We seek to answer how securely can we estimate the true uncontaminated star-planet radius ratio when the light curve may contain contamination from unresolved light sources inside the photometry aperture when combining multicolour transit observations with a physics-based contamination model. Methods. The study is based on simulations and ground-based transit observations. The analyses are carried out with a contamination model integrated into the PyTransit v2 transit modelling package, and the observations are carried out with the MuSCAT2 multicolour imager installed in the 1.5 m TCS in the Teide Observatory. Results. We show that multicolour transit photometry can be used to estimate the amount of flux contamination and the true radius ratio. Combining the true radius ratio with an estimate for the stellar radius yields the true absolute radius of the transiting object, which is a valuable quantity in statistical candidate validation, and enough in itself to validate a candidate whose radius falls below the theoretical lower limit for a brown dwarf.Comment: Accepted to A&

Surface and Temporal Biosignatures

Recent discoveries of potentially habitable exoplanets have ignited the prospect of spectroscopic investigations of exoplanet surfaces and atmospheres for signs of life. This chapter provides an overview of potential surface and temporal exoplanet biosignatures, reviewing Earth analogues and proposed applications based on observations and models. The vegetation red-edge (VRE) remains the most well-studied surface biosignature. Extensions of the VRE, spectral "edges" produced in part by photosynthetic or nonphotosynthetic pigments, may likewise present potential evidence of life. Polarization signatures have the capacity to discriminate between biotic and abiotic "edge" features in the face of false positives from band-gap generating material. Temporal biosignatures -- modulations in measurable quantities such as gas abundances (e.g., CO2), surface features, or emission of light (e.g., fluorescence, bioluminescence) that can be directly linked to the actions of a biosphere -- are in general less well studied than surface or gaseous biosignatures. However, remote observations of Earth's biosphere nonetheless provide proofs of concept for these techniques and are reviewed here. Surface and temporal biosignatures provide complementary information to gaseous biosignatures, and while likely more challenging to observe, would contribute information inaccessible from study of the time-averaged atmospheric composition alone.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, review to appear in Handbook of Exoplanets. Fixed figure conversion error

SMART-1 Impact Ground-based campaign

Based on predictions of impact magnitude and cloud ejecta dynamics, we organized a SMART-1 ground-based observation campaign to perform coordinated measurements of the impact. Results from the coordinated multi-site campaign will be discussed