Coupled-oscillator model to analyze the interaction between a quartz resonator and trapped ions

The novel application of a piezoelectric quartz resonator for the detection of trapped ions has enabled the observation of the quartz-ions interaction under nonequilibrium conditions, opening new perspectives for high-sensitive motional frequency measurements of radioactive particles. Energized quartz crystals have (long) decay-time constants in the order of milliseconds, permitting the coherent detection of charged particles within short time scales. In this paper we develop a detailed model governing the interaction between trapped 40Ca+ ions and a quartz resonator connected to a low-noise amplifier. We apply this model to experimental data and extract the ions’ reduced-cyclotron frequency in our 7-T Penning trap setup. We also obtain an upper limit for the coupling constant g with the present quartz-amplifier-trap (QAT) configuration. The study of the reduced-cyclotron frequency is especially important for the use of this resonator in precision Penning-trap mass spectrometry. The improvement in sensitivity can be accomplished by increasing the quality factor of the QAT configuration, which in turn will improve the performance of the system towards the strong-coupling regim

Antiwear performance of ionic liquid+graphene dispersions with anomalous viscosity-temperature behavior

New dispersions of few-layers graphene (G) in 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium ([EMIM]) ionic liquids (ILs) with dicyanamide ([DCA]) or bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([TFSI]) anions have been obtained by mechanical mixing and sonication. IL+0.5 wt% G dispersions show constant viscosity values from 357K (for IL = [EMIM][DCA]) or from 385K (for IL = [EMIM][TFSI]) to 393K. IL + G dispersions with G > 0.5 wt% show linear viscosity increases with increasing temperature, from 306K (for [EMIM][DCA]+1 wt%G) and from 330K to 393K (for [EMIM][TFSI]+0.75 wt%G and [EMIM][TFSI]+1 wt%G). Addition of graphene improves the poor wear reducing performance of [EMIM][DCA], and prevents surface damage on steel when added to [EMIM][TFSI]. Graphene increases the load-carrying ability of ILs, forms a surface layer on the sliding path and retains wear debris, preventing the formation of large abrasive particles.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO, Spain), EU FEDER Program (Grant # MAT2017-85130-P) Este trabajo es resultado de la actividad desarrollada en el marco del Programa de Ayudas a Grupos de Excelencia de la Región de Murcia, de la Fundación Séneca, Agencia de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Región de Murcia (Grant # 19877/GERM/15) M.D. Avilés ha recibido una beca del MINECO (BES-2015-074836)

Formation of two-ion crystals by injection from a Paul-trap source into a high-magnetic-field Penning trap

Two-ion crystals constitute a platform for investigations of quantum nature that can be extended to any ion species or charged particle provided one of the ions in the crystal can be directly laser cooled and manipulated with laser radiation. This paper presents the formation of two-ion crystals for quantum metrology in a 7-tesla open-ring Penning trap. 40Ca+ ions are produced either internally by photoionization or externally in a (Paul-trap) source, transported through the strong magnetic field gradient of the superconducting solenoid, and captured in-flight with a mean kinetic energy of a few electronvolts with respect to the minimum of the Penning-trap potential well. Laser cooling of the two-ion crystal in a strong magnetic field towards reaching the quantum regime is also presented, with particular emphasis on the cooling of the radial modes.Spanish Government PID2019-104093GB-I00/AEI/10.013 39/501100011033Andalusian Government P18FR-3432 PTA2018-016573-IFondo Operativo FEDER A-FQM-425-UGR18Spanish Government FPU17/02596University of Granada "Plan Propio -Programa de Intensificacion de la Investigacion" PP2017-PRI.I-04Laboratorios Singulares 2020European Research Council (ERC) European Commission 278648TRAPSENSOR MICINN/FEDER/UGR FPA2015-67694-P FPA2012-32076 UNGR10-1E501 UNGR13-1E-1830 EQC2018-005130-PJunta de AndaluciaEuropean Commission IE-5713 IE2017-5513Spanish MICINN ("Beatriz Galindo" Fellowship) BEAGAL18/00078German Research Foundation (DFG)European Commission SFB/CRC 122

Simulación prospectiva del crecimiento urbano en la Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid a partir de modelos basados en autómatas celulares y modelos basados en EMC

En el presente trabajo se analizan los resultados de varias simulaciones prospectivas de crecimiento urbano, entre los años 2000 y 2020, realizadas en la Comunidad de Madrid, aplicando dos modelos diferentes: uno basado en Autómatas Celulares (AC) y otro en técnicas de Evaluación MultiCriterio (EMC). El objetivo es comparar los resultados de las simulaciones de ambos modelos para detectar si se aproximan o están fuertemente influidos por la técnica empleada. Esto también permitiría, en cierta forma, evaluar los modelos desarrollados y su utilidad, pudiendo generar una cartografía de los resultados más robustos, es decir, de localizaciones que reiteradamente aparecen en las distintas simulaciones como las más apropiadas para desarrollar una futura ocupación urbana. En este caso concreto, se ha podido comprobar la escasa coincidencia entre resultados, evidenciando la necesidad, por un lado, de utilizar metodologías de comparación de mapas más flexibles, que permitan valorar mejor las semejanzas/diferencias encontradas, y, por otro, de detectar particularidades de los modelos que estén condicionando los resultados e, inclusive, deficiencias en su desarrollo.Proyecto SIMURBAN2: Instrumentos de Geosimulación y planificación ambiental en la ordenación territorial de ámbitos metropolitanos. Aplicación a escalas intermedias (Ref.: CSO2012-38158-C02-01)

Diseño y construcción de una estación de monitorio climático con almacenamiento y transmisión de datos

El presente Trabajo monográfico, muestra el diseño de una estación de monitoreo climático, que consiste en censar los datos siguientes: temperatura, humedad relativa, redacción solar, pluviosidad, velocidad y dirección del viento, presión atmosférica y la contaminación del ambiente o también por las siglas CO2

Recognition by familiarity is preserved in Parkinson's without dementia and Lewy-Body disease

Objective: The retrieval deficit hypothesis states that the lack of deficit in recognition often observed in patients with Parkinson's disease is because of the low retrieval requirements of the task, given that these patients have retrieval and not encoding deficits. To test this hypothesis we investigated recognition memory by familiarity in Parkinson’s patients and in patients with Lewy Bodies disease and Parkinson with dementia. Method: We analyzed to what extent the experimental groups were able to recognize by familiarity in a typical yes/no recognition memory task. The experimental groups were patients with early nondemented Parkinson’s disease, advanced nondemented Parkinson’s disease, demented Parkinson’s patients, and patients with dementia with Lewy Bodies. We compared their performance with a group of young and another group of old healthy participants. The estimation of familiarity was made by analyzing recognition of word targets and distractors consisting of combinations of different letters in comparison with a condition in which targets and distractors were composed of similar letters, even though subjects were unaware of the independent variable. Results: The results indicate that familiarity was used at the same level by controls, patients with early Parkinson’s disease and patients with dementia with Lewy Bodies. Although late Parkinson patients also used familiarity, its effect was only marginally significant. Patients with Parkinson’s disease and dementia were not capable of using familiarity in recognition memory. Conclusions: Our results support the retrieval deficit hypothesis as Parkinson’s patients without dementia show no deficit in a situation in which the retrieval requirements are minimal

Nanostructured Ti thin films by magnetron sputtering at oblique angles

The growth of Ti thin films by the magnetron sputtering technique at oblique angles and at room temperature is analysed from both experimental and theoretical points of view. Unlike other materials deposited in similar conditions, the nanostructure development of the Ti layers exhibits an anomalous behaviour when varying both the angle of incidence of the deposition flux and the deposition pressure. At low pressures, a sharp transition from compact to isolated, vertically aligned, nanocolumns is obtained when the angle of incidence surpasses a critical threshold. Remarkably, this transition also occurs when solely increasing the deposition pressure under certain conditions. By the characterization of the Ti layers, the realization of fundamental experiments and the use of a simple growth model, we demonstrate that surface mobilization processes associated to a highly directed momentum distribution and the relatively high kinetic energy of sputtered atoms are responsible for this behaviourJunta de Andalucía P12-FQM- 2265Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CSD2008- 00023, MAT2013-42900-P, MAT2013-40852-R, MAT2014-59772-C2-1, MAT2011- 2908

Análisis y cartografía de peligrosidad geológica en el litoral de Ceuta

La Ciudad Autónoma de Ceuta posee un litoral con una longitud de más 25 km donde se concentra gran parte de su población. En estas costas se describen numerosos procesos geológicos que conllevan una importante peligrosidad potencial para la vida humana e infraestructuras. El objetivo de este trabajo es describir y analizar cada uno de estos procesos mediante la construcción de mapas de peligrosidad de inundaciones y avenidas fluviales; deslizamientos y caída de rocas; y temporales, tsunamis y ascenso del nivel del mar. Aunque aproximadamente sólo el 15% del territorio de Ceuta se encuentra afectada potencialmente por algún tipo de proceso peligroso, hay que destacar que más del 70% de la superficie de su litoral sí se encuentra expuesto. Las zonas consideradas de mayor peligrosidad coinciden con espacios donde se concentran varios tipos de procesos que actúan con grados de peligrosidad alta a muy alta. Son sectores costeros relativamente planos, aunque anexos a zonas más escarpadas, donde desembocan arroyos y barrancos que presentan un comportamiento de marcado carácter estacional.The coastal line of Ceuta is more than 25 km length, where a great amount of population is placed. Along this coast many geological processes have been described and imply a great threat for both human and infrastructure. The aim of this work is to analyse these processes by means of geological hazard mapping focused on flooding and flash flood, landslide and rock fall, storms, tsunamis and sea-level rise. These maps are valuable tools to predict and reduce the response-time with respect to catastrophic natural processes and territorial management. Although approximately only 15% of the Ceuta territory is exposed, more than 70% of its coastal area is exposed to geological hazards. Zones of higher hazard are located where several -high to very high degree- hazard processes could take place even simultaneously. This scenario is mainly found in relatively flat coastal sectors but attached to steep zones, where stream mouths and gorges are placed and display a strong seasonal behaviour

Dynamic positioning of floating caissons based on the UKF filter under external perturbances induced by waves

This paper presents a dynamic positioning control scheme for concrete caissons in an attempt to automate part of the manoeuvres which usually require a complex deploy of personnel and equipment for port infrastructures development. The aim of this paper is to propose a control scheme, which is able to provide a reduction in costs and an improvement in security for the dynamic positioning manoeuvres . To do so, a dual loop controller is developed and the unscented Kalman filter is applied for states and perturbances estimation. Furthermore, a control allocation algorithm is proposed based on anchoring lines and winches. Finally, some simulations are performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.The Spanish FEDER/Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities — State Research Agency (Fig. 14) is greatly acknowledged for funding our research through SAFE Project (Desarrollo de un Sistema Autónomo para el Fondeo de Estructuras para Obras Marítimas), Grant Agreement: RTC-2017-6603-4. The authors would like to thank FCC CO as a collaborator in the development of the SAFE Project. R. Guanche also acknowledges financial support from the Ramon y Cajal Program (RYC-2017-23260) of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities

LQG control for dynamic positioning of floating caissons based on the Kalman filter

This paper presents the application of an linear quadratic gaussian (LQG) control strategy for concrete caisson deployment for marine structures. Currently these maneuvers are carried out manually with the risk that this entails. Control systems for these operations with classical regulators have begun to be implemented. They try to reduce risks, but they still need to be optimized due to the complexity of the dynamics involved during the sinking process and the contact with the sea bed. A linear approximation of the dynamic model of the caisson is obtained and an LQG control strategy is implemented based on the Kalman filter (KF). The results of the proposed LQG control strategy are compared to the ones given by a classic controller. It is noted that the proposed system is positioned with greater precision and accuracy, as shown in the different simulations and in the Monte Carlo study. Furthermore, the control efforts are less than with classical regulators. For all the reasons cited above, it is concluded that there is a clear improvement in performance with the control system proposed.The Spanish FEDER/Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities—State Research Agency is greatly acknowledged for partially funding our research through the SAFE Project (Desarrollo de un Sistema Autónomo para el Fondeo de Estructuras para Obras Marítimas), GrantAgreement: RTC-2017-6603-4. The Regional Ministry of Universities, Equality, Culture and Sports of the Gov-ernment of Cantabria has supported this work through the ControlFond project (Control De Ve-hículos Subacuáticos No Tripulados Para Supervisión De Estructuras Para Obras Marítimas Fondeadas). The authors would like to thank FCC Construcción CO as a collaborator in the de-velopment of the SAFE Project, specially Victor Florez Casillas and Nuria Cotallo Aguado (Tech-nical Direction/Hydraulic and Maritime Works) and Alvaro de Toro Mingo (Machinery Direction). R. Guanche also acknowledges financial support from the Ramon y Cajal Program (RYC-2017-23260) of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities