Geo-chemical Analysis of Opus tesselatum from Ávila, Spain

Se han estudiado diversas muestras de Opus tesselatum procedentes de excavaciones arqueológicas de urgencia en Ávila (España) para determinar su origen y las tecnologías de producción utilizadas en su fabricación. Las teselas se han caracterizado por Espectrometría de Masas con fuente de Plasma de Acoplamiento Inductivo (ICP-MS), Difracción de Rayos X (XRD) y Espectrofotometría. Las muestras se corresponden con diferentes materiales con orígenes dispares (vidrios y rocas de varias áreas de aprovisionamiento). El color rojo en algunas teselas se debe principalmente a la presencia de cinabrio en su composición, lo que indica un movimiento comercial de materiales desde otras zonas de España ya que este mineral no está presente en las rocas de la provincia de ÁvilaSeveral Opus tesselatum samples from an emergency archaeological excavation in Ávila (Spain) have been studied in order to gather their origin and the production technologies used in their manufacture. Inductively coupled plasmamass spectrometry (ICP-MS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and spectrophotometry were used to characterize the samples. The samples were made with different materials of different origin (glasses and rocks from different Spain areas). Red color in some Opus tesselatum samples is mainly due to cinnabar presence in their composition. It could be indicative of commercial movements between different Spanish sites, since this mineral is not present in rocks from Ávil

Archaeometric study of Roman tesserae from Salamanca (Spain). Archaeology and geochemical analysis

In this study an analysis was made of 37 samples of tesserae of different shades and colours from Roman archaeological sites in the province of Salamanca (Spain), where pavements of opus tessellatum have been located. The tesserae were characterized by Mass Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Spectrometry, in order to determine their origin, composition and technique of manufacture. Results could reveal to us the local production of certain tesserae and the existence of a commercial network through the Via de la Plata and its main roads in the Iberian Peninsula

Cooperación descentralizada pública: introducción, enfoques y ámbitos de actuación

Programes com Demuca i Municipia han permès a Diputacions i Ajuntaments acumular una rica experiència en l'àmbit de la Cooperació Internacional i destacar el potencial que aquests tenen com a agents de primer ordre en matèria de cooperació per al desenvolupament. Per això és cada vegada més necessària la formació dels professionals de les diverses administracions públiques i augmentar els seus coneixements especialitzats en la preparació i posada en marxa de projectes que contribuïsquen a la millora de la qualitat del sistema de cooperació

Processing and hydration activation of limestone calcined clay belite rich cements.

Belite-rich limestone calcined clay cements, BR-LC3, could be an alternative for low carbon binders with potentially very good durability properties, given the high amount of C-S-H gel from the cement hydration with additional C-(A)-S-H from the pozzolanic reaction. Nevertheless, BR-LC3 phase hydration rates at early ages are slow and they must be enhanced, for instance by using C-S-H nucleation seeding admixtures. In this work, a BR-LC3 binder was prepared using a clinker-activated Belite-rich cement, BC (58 wt%), kaolinitic calcined clay (26 wt%), limestone (13 wt%) and gypsum (3 wt%). Pastes were prepared with a water-to-binder (w/b) ratio of 0.40 and superplasticizer. Mortars were prepared with the w/b=0.40 and having a target slump self-flow of 210±20 mm. Paste hydration characterization was carried out by thermal analysis, Rietveld quantitative phase analysis and mercury intrusion porosimetry. The compressive strengths of the mortars were also determined. Remarkable compressive strength improvements at 7 and 28 days are shown by using a C-S-H seeding admixture. The improvement of mechanical strengths is not related to belite phase hydration acceleration but mainly to lower porosity.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Contribución de la electrónica y fotónica a la tecnología de la rehabilitación

Alrededor de un 15% de la población está afectada en cierto grado por una discapacidad. En la sociedad del bienestar y a las puertas de un nuevo milenio, existe una indudable preocupación por proporcionar a estas personas con discapacidad acceso a servicios similares, y a un mismo grado de independencia que sus conciudadanos. En este sentido, la Tecnología de la Rehabilitación será la encargada de ofrecerles soluciones, productos y servicios que les permitan equipararse con el resto de la sociedad y acceder de forma igualitaria a las mismas tareas, actividades y puestos de trabajo. El soporte tecnológico sobre el que se basarán los citados productos o servicios puede ser variado, aunque disciplinas tradicionales como la electrónica y la fotónica seguirán jugando un papel preponderante.Publicad

Reformulating Pro-Oxidant Microglia in Neurodegeneration

In neurodegenerative diseases, microglia-mediated neuroinflammation and oxidative stress are central events. Recent genome-wide transcriptomic analyses of microglial cells under different disease conditions have uncovered a new subpopulation named disease-associated microglia (DAM). These studies have challenged the classical view of the microglia polarization state's proinflammatory M1 (classical activation) and immunosuppressive M2 (alternative activation). Molecular signatures of DAM and proinflammatory microglia (highly pro-oxidant) have shown clear differences, yet a partial overlapping gene profile is evident between both phenotypes. The switch activation of homeostatic microglia into reactive microglia relies on the selective activation of key surface receptors involved in the maintenance of brain homeostasis (a.k.a. pattern recognition receptors, PRRs). Two relevant PRRs are toll-like receptors (TLRs) and triggering receptors expressed on myeloid cells-2 (TREM2), whose selective activation is believed to generate either a proinflammatory or a DAM phenotype, respectively. However, the recent identification of endogenous disease-related ligands, which bind to and activate both TLRs and TREM2, anticipates the existence of rather complex microglia responses. Examples of potential endogenous dual ligands include amyloid β, galectin-3, and apolipoprotein E. These pleiotropic ligands induce a microglia polarization that is more complicated than initially expected, suggesting the possibility that different microglia subtypes may coexist. This review highlights the main microglia polarization states under disease conditions and their leading role orchestrating oxidative stress

Smart Bracelet for Emotional Enhancement in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have great difficulties in social interaction and in the management of personal and other people’s emotions. This work aimed at developing an intelligent bracelet, capable of inferring the children’s emotional state, transmitting it to others, and, above all, informing the patients themselves so that they can learn to recognise, control, and work with, as well as to improve their self-knowledge and their relationship with their environment. Electrodermal activity (EDA) and photoplethysmography (PPG) are useful in combined psychophysiological and medical studies to determine the mood of patients. Due to COVID-19, no experiments with subjects could be carried out, although the modules were validated, and a public database was used to test the system’s application. The results concluded that, in general, when an individual is altered or becomes nervous, either positively or negatively (also known as valence) to a stimulus, their heart rate and sweating increase. This is the kind of relationship between physiological signals and external stimuli that the design of these circuits was intended to confirm. Finally, with the indicators of nervous system activity and knowing the behaviour of skin conductance in response to each basic emotion, it can be determined whether the subject is in a situation of pleasure or frustration in response to each reaction.Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, State Plan 2017–2020: Challenges—R&D&I Projects PID2019-104323RB-C3

Pozzolanic materials to reduce CO2 emissions: local solutions for a global issue.

Abstract de una keynote invitada.In recent decades, the cement sector has been looking for solutions to reduce the carbon footprint, being one of the most promising strategies, the replacement of clinker with supplementary cementitious materials, SCMs. However, the main limitation of this approach is the availability of suitable SCMs. This work presents the study of three families of pozzolanic materials, Spanish calcined clays (CC), Natural Pozzolans (NP) and fly ashes (FA). The characterization of each family will be presented, with emphasis on the kaolinite content of the original clays and the amorphous contents of the natural pozzolans and fly ashes. The results of the pozzolanic prediction tests will be compared: strength activity index, SAI, and R3 test according to ASTM C1897-20. The SAI test has two important limitations: i) it gives false positives at 28 days, as does the addition of quartz (Qz) and ii) a minimum of 28 days is required to obtain the pozzolanic activity results. In addition, the R3 test has proved to be useful in ruling out inert additions, such as quartz. Moreover, it presents a very good correlation between the heat emitted and the combined water at 7 days and the amount of kaolinite in clays or amorphous in ashes. However, the absolute values of heat and combined water cannot be compared between different families. That is, in the calcined clay family, it can be inferred that if the kaolinite content is higher than 50 wt%, the heat released should be between 500-700 J/g, whereas a fly ash with an amorphous content of around 70 wt% will release between 200-250 J/g.PID2020-114650RB-I00 grant from Spanish government, Master Builders Solutions Deutschland GmbH (Germany) and Buzzi Unicem SpA (Italy) are thanked for the funding. Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Mix and measure - Combining in situ X-ray powder diffraction and microtomography for accurate hydrating cement studies.

It is reported an innovative methodology based on in situ MoKα1 laboratory X-ray powder diffraction (LXRPD) and microtomography (μCT) avoiding any sample conditioning. The pastes are injected in 2.0 mm capillaries and the extremes are just sealed. The measurements take place in the same region of the hydrating paste. Thick capillaries are key to avoiding self-desiccation, which dictates the need of high-energy X-ray radiation for the diffraction study. This approach has been tested with a PC 42.5 R paste having w/c = 0.50. μCT data were collected at 12 h and 1, 3, 7 and 79 days. LXRPD data were acquired at 1, 3, 7 and 77 days. In this proof-ofprinciple research, the same paste was also cured ex situ. Portlandite contents obtained by thermal analysis, ex situ powder diffraction, in situ mass balance calculation and in situ powder diffraction were 13.8, 13.1, 13.1 and 12.5 wt%, respectively. From the μCT study, the grey value histogram evolution with time showed a crossing point which allowed us to distinguish (appearing) hydrated products from (dissolving) unhydrated cement particles. Segmentations were carried out by global thresholding and the random forest approach (one type of supervised Machine Learning). The comparison of the segmented results for the unhydrated cement fraction and the Rietveld quantitative phase analysis outputs gave an agreement of 2 %. The potential of this methodology to deal with more complex binders is also presented.This research was partly supported by the research grant PID2020- 114650RB-I00 of Agencia Estatal de Investigacion which is co-funded by ERDF