Anchoring emergency lightweight shelters

Field tests have been conducted to address the question: ‘what are the major aspects to consider using anchors in the humanitarian sector?. Influence of soil, weather, type and combination of anchors, installation, orientation, inclination, depth, displacement and price have been measured. An extensive study of anchor usage, practice recommendations with step by step checklists and a handout for humanitarian field practitioners is provided to identify the best anchoring option for their context of intervention.Postprint (published version

Smale flows on S2×S1\mathbb{S}^2\times\mathbb{S}^1

In this paper, we use abstract Lyapunov graphs as a combinatorial tool to obtain a complete classification of Smale flows on $\mathbb{S}^2\times\mathbb{S}^1$. This classification gives necessary and sufficient conditions that must be satisfied by an abstract Lyapunov graph in order for it to be associated to a Smale flow on $\mathbb{S}^2\times\mathbb{S}^1$

Ciudad y transdisciplina

En la investigación que presentamos se estudia el problema de cómo afrontar los problemas de la ciudad actual. El trabajo recorre la necesidad de un cambio de los valores dominantes para afrontar los problemas de este nuevo siglo. Este cambio de valores conlleva un cambio cultural que necesita del desarrollo de nuevas herramientas para su implantación, al igual que la invención de la rueda o el descubrimiento del fuego, son las herramientas las que provocan el salto conceptual y el cambio cultural. Tras establecer una metodología coherente con un problema complejo, la transdisciplina, ofrecemos el diseño de nuevas herramientas para trabajar con estas transformaciones: la Escuela Relacional, el Parlamento Matricial y el Mercado del Munus. La investigación revela la importancia de la mujer en todo este proceso, siendo primordial el estudio de los diferentes temas de forma relacional y holística, y no solo racional y lineal, siendo el pensamiento femenino y la divergencia las claves para este necesario cambio y para el diseño del futuro. La investigación ofrece una aplicación del proceso de puesta en marcha de estas nuevas herramientas para la rehabilitación de la ciudad. En este apartado de nuevo se destaca el papel fundamental de la mujer para el funcionamiento del grupo y su relación directa con la efectividad e inteligencia grupal de un colectivo

Growth saturation of unstable thin films on transverse-striped hydrophilic-hydrophobic micropatterns

Using three-dimensional numerical simulations, we demonstrate the growth saturation of an unstable thin liquid film on micropatterned hydrophilic-hydrophobic substrates. We consider different transverse-striped micropatterns, characterized by the total fraction of hydrophilic coverage and the width of the hydrophilic stripes. We compare the growth of the film on the micropatterns to the steady states observed on homogeneous substrates, which correspond to a saturated sawtooth and growing finger configurations for hydrophilic and hydrophobic substrates, respectively. The proposed micropatterns trigger an alternating fingering-spreading dynamics of the film, which leads to a complete suppression of the contact line growth above a critical fraction of hydrophilic stripes. Furthermore, we find that increasing the width of the hydrophilic stripes slows down the advancing front, giving smaller critical fractions the wider the hydrophilic stripes are. Using analytical approximations, we quantitatively predict the growth rate of the contact line as a function of the covering fraction, and predict the threshold fraction for saturation as a function of the stripe width.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

The psytrance party

In my study, I explore a specific kind of Electronic Dance Music (EDM) event - the psytrance party to highlight the importance of social connectivity and the generation of a modern form of communitas (Turner, 1969, 1982). Since the early 90s psytrance, and a related earlier style, Goa trance, have been understood as hedonist music cultures where participants seek to get into a trance-like state through all night dancing and psychedelic drugs consumption. Authors (Cole and Hannan, 1997; D’Andrea, 2007; Partridge, 2004; St John 2010a and 2010b; Saldanha, 2007) conflate this electronic dance music with spirituality and indigene rituals. In addition, they locate psytrance in a neo-psychedelic countercultural continuum with roots stretching back to the 1960s. Others locate the trance party events, driven by fast, hypnotic, beat-driven, largely instrumental music, as post sub cultural and neo-tribal, representing symbolic resistance to capitalism and neo liberalism. My study is in partial agreement with these readings when applied to genre history, but questions their validity for contemporary practice. The data I collected at and around the 2008 Offworld festival demonstrates that participants found the psytrance experience enjoyable and enriching, despite an apparent lack of overt euphoria, spectacular transgression, or sustained hedonism. I suggest that my work adds to an existing body of literature on psytrance in its exploration of a dance music event as a liminal space, redolent with communitas, but one too which foregrounds mundane features, such as socialising and pleasure. In addition my work contributes to popular music studies and youth cultures research notably when related to field work methods and ethnographic approaches. My inquiry harnesses a variety of fieldwork methods to argue for re-evaluation of the psytrance party. Attention in particular is paid to the event’s many material elements and how they interact. They include site spaces, infrastructure, dancing, or ’chilling’, bodies, DJs, sound systems, organisers and drugs. The study applies concepts developed in cultural anthropology such as communitas, in the new ethnography (Goodall, 1999; Marcus 1998) - reflexive researching and partial insiderness – and, lastly, the ‘vibe’ and the DJ-dancer relationship, which remain fundamental to electronic dance music cultures

Three-dimensional aspects of fluid flows in channels. II. Effects of Meniscus and Thin Film regimes on Viscous Fingers

We perform a three-dimensional study of steady state viscous fingers that develop in linear channels. By means of a three-dimensional Lattice-Boltzmann scheme that mimics the full macroscopic equations of motion of the fluid momentum and order parameter, we study the effect of the thickness of the channel in two cases. First, for total displacement of the fluids in the channel thickness direction, we find that the steady state finger is effectively two-dimensional and that previous two-dimensional results can be recovered by taking into account the effect of a curved meniscus across the channel thickness as a contribution to surface stresses. Secondly, when a thin film develops in the channel thickness direction, the finger narrows with increasing channel aspect ratio in agreement with experimental results. The effect of the thin film renders the problem three-dimensional and results deviate from the two-dimensional prediction.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure

Lunasin: A Novel Cancer Preventive Seed Peptide

Cancer is one of the leading causes of deaths in the Western world. Approximately one-third of these deaths are preventable by lifestyle factors, including modification of nutritional habits. Studies have demonstrated that adequate nutrition with certain types of foods containing bioactive compounds might offer significant protection against carcinogenesis. Soybeans contain a variety of phytochemicals with demonstrated anticancer activity, including isoflavones, protease inhibitors, and more recently lunasin, a novel cancer preventive seed peptide. Initially isolated from soybean, lunasin has also been reported in barley and wheat. The purpose of this review is to summarize the most recent evidence on the possible benefits of lunasin for cancer prevention

Protecting sensitive constructions from tunnelling: the case of World Heritage buildings in Barcelona

Permission is granted by ICE Publishing to print one copy for personal use. Any other use of these PDF files is subject to reprint fees.Construction of the tunnel for the high-speed Madrid–Barcelona–France railway link across central Barcelona became a major technical and social challenge due to the impact of the tunnel on nearby historic buildings (two of them, the Sagrada Familia basilica and Casa Milà, being United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) World Heritage structures). Protection of sensitive buildings from tunnelling-induced movements relied on the construction of a stiff pile wall, separating the tunnel from historic sites. This paper first presents a simplified procedure to analyse the wall–tunnel interaction in a straightforward manner. The main features of the tunnel, excavated by means of an earth pressure balance machine in tertiary clays and sands below the water table, are then described. Details of the design of the wall that was finally built are presented. Issues that were particularly important include the groundwater flow constraints and the use of small-strain soil stiffness properties to obtain realistic settlements. General criteria to design the protection wall are also presented. The good performance of the wall resulted in negligible tunnelling impact on the sensitive structures. The measured and predicted displacements are compared, suggesting that this type of solution is adequate to protect historic structures from tunnelling.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Improved expressions for performance parameters for complex filters

Improved expressions are given for the performance parameters for transverse and axial gains for complex pupil filters. These expressions can be used to predict the behavior of filters that give a small axial shift in the focal intensity maximum and also predict the changes in gain for different observation planes