The Emerging Clean Transportation Workforce: Opportunities and Recommendations to Support the Growing Alternative Fuels Industry

America’s transportation system is the backbone of its economy, connecting households to employment, healthcare, and education and supporting the movement of goods and services across supply chains. This system while indispensable is facing mounting challenges in traffic and congestion, decaying infrastructure, over-dependence on foreign oil, and in many communities a lack of infrastructure for public transit, cyclists, and pedestrians. In 2017, congestion alone cost the U.S. an estimated $305 billion from lost worker productivity, wasted fuel, and other economic factors. Even this number fails to account for the true size of the problem, externalizing traffic’s toll on health, both external (air pollution) and internal (stress), and the environment. In fact, the transportation sector is now the largest source of climatechanging greenhouse gas emissions in the nation. As increasing tailpipe emissions continue to alter the climate, amplified extreme weather and natural disasters could threaten the safety and reliability the transportation system, as well as increase the costs of maintaining it. Clearly, a break from business as usual is needed to create a transportation system that is cleaner, more equitable, and accessible. While solving transportation’s modern challenges will require a number of place-based solutions, such as walkable and bikeable streets and improved access to public transit, this paper focuses on expanding the use of alternative fuels, for example with electric vehicles (EVs). More EVs on the road means spending less on imported fuels, saving consumers billions of dollars at the pump, and keeping more transportation dollars within local economies. These economic gains are especially key in rural communities, where on average households spend 7% more of their budgets on transportation compared to urban households. As Northeast states increasingly invest in clean energy and transportation, tens of thousands of new jobs in fields such as science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM); public transit; and construction will be created. The evolving landscape of transportation technologies, from EVs to autonomous vehicles, will require new educational programs, training, and competencies. This paper examines what education and training programs exist today to support the alternative fuels transportation industry, and provides recommendations on further building out a workforce pipeline to meet anticipated growth. Job seekers should read on to discover what training and education opportunities are currently available, while educators and workforce development professionals are provided with recommendations on how to provide more training and education programs to keep pace with the growing market for EVs and other alternative fuels

Ullucus tuberosus Caldas: colección de germoplasma de ullucu conservada en el Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP).

El presente catálogo contiene información pasaporte, datos de caracterización morfológica y ploidía para 432 accesiones de ulluco mantenidas en el banco de germoplasma del CIP. Para ilustrar mejor los datos de caracterización morfológica, cada accesión está acompañada de un set de fotografías que incluye la parte aérea de la planta, los tubérculos, las flores y una muestra lista para herborizar conformada por un tallo con sus hojas y flores. La información pasaporte es complementada con mapas ilustrados que muestran el lugar de colecta de cada accesión

Mice with a Heterozygous Lrp6 Deletion Have Impaired Fracture Healing

Bone fracture non-unions, the failure of a fracture to heal, occur in 10%–20% of fractures and are a costly and debilitating clinical problem. The Wnt/β-catenin pathway is critical in bone development and fracture healing. Polymorphisms of linking low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 6 (LRP6), a Wnt-binding receptor, have been associated with decreased bone mineral density and fragility fractures, although this remains controversial. Mice with a homozygous deletion of Lrp6 have severe skeletal abnormalities and are not viable, whereas mice with a heterozygous deletion have a combinatory effect with Lrp5 to decrease bone mineral density. As fracture healing closely models embryonic skeletal development, we investigated the process of fracture healing in mice heterozygous for Lrp6 (Lrp6+/−) and hypothesized that the heterozygous deletion of Lrp6 would impair fracture healing. Mid-diaphyseal femur fractures were induced in Lrp6+/− mice and wild-type controls (Lrp6+/+). Fractures were analyzed using micro-computed tomography (μCT) scans, biomechanical testing, and histological analysis. Lrp6+/− mice had significantly decreased stiffness and strength at 28 days post fracture (PF) and significantly decreased BV/TV, total density, immature bone density, and mature area within the callus on day-14 and -21 PF; they had significantly increased empty callus area at days 14 and 21 PF. Our results demonstrate that the heterozygous deletion of Lrp6 impairs fracture healing, which suggests that Lrp6 has a role in fracture healing

Stress relaxation and creep experiments with the atomic force microscope: a unified method to calculate elastic moduli and viscosities of biomaterials (and cells)

We show that the atomic force microscope can perform stress relaxation and creep compliance measurements on living cells. We propose a method to obtain the mechanical properties of the studied biomaterial: the relaxation time, the elastic moduli and the viscosity.Comment: 17 pages, three figure

Demyelinating and ischemic brain diseases: detection algorithm through regular magnetic resonance images

[EN] This work presents the advance to development of an algorithm for automatic detection of demyelinating lesions and cerebral ischemia through magnetic resonance images, which have contributed in paramount importance in the diagnosis of brain diseases. The sequences of images to be used are T1, T2, and FLAIR. Brain demyelination lesions occur due to damage of the myelin layer of nerve fibers; and therefore this deterioration is the cause of serious pathologies such as multiple sclerosis (MS), leukodystrophy, disseminated acute encephalomyelitis. Cerebral or cerebrovascular ischemia is the interruption of the blood supply to the brain, thus interrupting; the flow of oxygen and nutrients needed to maintain the functioning of brain cells. The algorithm allows the differentiation between these lesions.The authors are grateful with the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja Hospital (H-UTPL) for collaborate with the data for this project.Castillo, D.; Samaniego, R.; Jiménez, Y.; Cuenca, L.; Vivanco, O.; Rodríguez-Álvarez, M. (2017). Demyelinating and ischemic brain diseases: detection algorithm through regular magnetic resonance images. Proceedings of SPIE. 10396:103961C-1-103961C-9. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2274579103961C-1103961C-91039

Caliope: an operational air quality forecasting system for the Iberian Peninsula, Balearic Islands and Canary Islands ? first annual evaluation and ongoing developments

International audienceThe Caliope project funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment establishes an air quality forecasting system for Spain to increase the knowledge on transport and dynamics of pollutants in Spain, to assure the accomplishment of legislation and to inform the population about the levels of pollutants, topics in which the European Commission has shown a great concern. The present contribution describes the first quantitative verification study performed so far with two chemistry transport models (CMAQ and CHIMERE) for a reference year (2004) at medium spatial resolution (around 20×20 km for the Iberian Peninsula). Both models perform similarly in the case of ground-level ozone. The mean normalised gross error MNGE remains below 15?20% during summertime, when ozone episodes occur, outlining the good skills of the system concerning the forecasting of air quality in Spain. Furthermore, the ongoing developments of the system towards high resolution modelling (4×4 km for Spain, 12×12 km for Europe, 1 h temporal resolution) and the integration with observations within the Caliope umbrella are described

Magnetic resonance brain images algorithm to identify demyelinating and ischemic diseases

[EN] Brain demyelination lesions occur due to damage of the myelin layer of nerve fibers, this deterioration is the cause of pathologies such as multiple sclerosis, leukodystrophy, encephalomyelitis. Brain ischemia is the interruption of the blood supply to the brain, and the flow of oxygen and nutrients needed to maintain the correct functioning of brain cells. This project presents the results of an algorithm processing images with the the main objective of identify and differentiate between demyelination and ischemic brain diseases through the automatic detection, classification and identification of their features found in the magnetic resonance images. The sequences of images used were T1, T2, and FLAIR and with a dataset of 300 patients with and without these or other pathologies, respectively. The algorithm in this stage uses Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), principal component analysis (PCA) and a kernel support vector machine (SVM). The algorithm developed indicates a 75% of accuracy, for that reason, with an effective validation could be applied for the fast diagnosis and contribute to an effective treatment of these brain diseases especially in the rural places.Castillo-Malla, DP.; Samaniego, R.; Jimenez, Y.; Cuenca, L.; Vivanco, O.; Rodríguez-Álvarez, M. (2018). Magnetic resonance brain images algorithm to identify demyelinating and ischemic diseases. Proceedings of SPIE. 10752:1-6. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2322048S161075

The Emerging Clean Transportation Workforce: Opportunities and Recommendations to Support the Growing Alternative Fuels Industry

DTFH6114H00022This paper examines what education and training programs exist today to support the alternative fuels transportation industry, and provides recommendations on further building out a workforce pipeline to meet anticipated growth. Job seekers should read on to discover what training and education opportunities are currently available, while educators and workforce development professionals are provided with recommendations on how to provide more training and education programs to keep pace with the growing market for EVs and other alternative fuels