Problemas de fugas a través del karst en la Presa de Tous (España) (Análisis estructural, previsión del comportamiento y recomendeciones)

In the present work, the problems of leakages happened in Tous’s dam (Valencia-Spain) are studied. Tous’s dam is built on karstic terrains with the existence of caverns and strike-slip faults that at the same time become karstic. In this study the techniques of structural geology are applied, so, we deduct the karstic drainage directions, by using determined hypothesis of work. The confirmation of these hypotheses in the course of our fieldwork has permitted to quantify the probability of those leakages for each direction we found. This circumstance has permitted to foretell the places where it would be possible to expect leakages with the increase of the height of the dam foreseen for a second phase of building

Mutational spectrum of GNAL, THAP1 and TOR1A genes in isolated dystonia: study in a population from Spain and systematic literature review

[Objective] We aimed to investigate the prevalence of TOR1A, GNAL and THAP1 variants as the cause of dystonia in a cohort of Spanish patients with isolated dystonia and in the literature.[Methods] A population of 2028 subjects (including 1053 patients with different subtypes of isolated dystonia and 975 healthy controls) from southern and central Spain was included. The genes TOR1A, THAP1 and GNAL were screened using a combination of high-resolution melting analysis and direct DNA resequencing. In addition, an extensive literature search to identify original articles (published before 10 August 2020) reporting mutations in TOR1A, THAP1 or GNAL associated to dystonia was performed.[Results] Pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants in TOR1A, THAP1 and GNAL were identified in 0.48%, 0.57% and 0.29% of our patients, respectively. Five patients carried the variation p.Glu303del in TOR1A. A very rare variant in GNAL (p.Ser238Asn) was found as a putative risk factor for dystonia. In the literature, variations in TOR1A, THAP1 and GNAL accounted for about 6%, 1.8% and 1.1% of published dystonia patients, respectively.[Conclusions] There is a different genetic contribution to dystonia of these three genes in our patients (about 1.3% of patients) and in the literature (about 3.6% of patients), probably due the high proportion of adult-onset cases in our cohort. As regards age at onset, site of dystonia onset, and final distribution, in our population there is a clear differentiation between DYT-TOR1A and DYT-GNAL, with DYT-THAP1 likely to be an intermediate phenotype.This work was supported by the Carlos III Health Institute-European Regional Development Fund (ISCIII-FEDER) [PI14/01823, PI16/01575, PI18/01898, PI19/01576], the Andalusian Regional Ministry of Economics, Innovation, Science and Employment [CVI-02526, CTS-7685], the Andalusian Regional Ministry of Health and Welfare [PI-0741-2010, PI-0471-2013, PE-0210-2018, PI-0459-2018, PE-0186-2019], and the Alicia Koplowitz and Mutua Madrileña Foundations. Pilar Gómez-Garre was supported by the "Miguel Servet" program [MSII14/00018] (from ISCIII-FEDER) and “Nicolás Monardes” program [C-0048-2017] (from the Andalusian Regional Ministry of Health). Silvia Jesús was supported by the "Juan Rodés" program [B-0007-2019] and Daniel Macías-García by the “Río Hortega” program [CM18/00142] (both from ISCIII-FEDER). María Teresa Periñán was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education [FPU16/05061]. Cristina Tejera was supported by VPPI-US from the University of Seville.Peer reviewe

Stress dynamics during O-T phase transitions in lead-free KNN-based piezoelectric ceramics

[EN] In this study, we have investigated the stress dynamics arising from the Orthorhombic-Tetragonal Polymorphic Phase Boundary (PPB) in lead-free potassium sodium niobate (KNN)-based ceramics and its temperature dependence, as a means to elucidate the characteristics of PPBs in lead-free piezoelectric oxides. The dynamics are dictated by the phase transitions that occur upon cooling from the cubic phase and the coexistence of different crystal structures. Our findings reveal that the growth of Orthorhombic phases is constrained by the high-temperature tetragonal phase distributions. In particular, it is evidenced that two main mechanisms regulate the decrease of stress processes in which structural and microstructural effects are correlated; the first one is associated to a purely microstructural effect in which bimodal grain distribution hinders the formation of non-180° domains. By contrast, the second is mainly governed by ferroelectric domain distribution and the occurrence of pseudo-cubic regions around room temperature associated with local structural heterogeneity (that is, polar nano regions, PNRs). Specifically, these mechanisms generate regions with different stress state and explain the widening of the phase transition due the phase coexistence.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under the project PID2020-114192RB-C41. Dr. Alberto Moure is indebted to MINECO for a ‘Ramon y Cajal’ contract (ref: RYC-2013-14436), which is co-financed by the European Social Fund. F.R-M. also acknowledges financial support from Comunidad de Madrid for an “Doctorados In-dustriales” proyect (IND2020/IND-17375), which is co-financed by the European Social Fund.Peer reviewe

Poling and depoling influence on the micro-stress states and phase coexistence in KNN-based piezoelectric ceramics

[EN] In this work a microstructural qualitative and quantitative study of spatial stress distributions in modified KNN ceramics (KNaLi)Co (NbTaSb)O, according to the polarization state is shown. X-ray diffraction reflects a perovskite crystalline structure with coexistence of Tetragonal and Orthorhombic phases (T/O). Confocal Raman microscopy shows that these crystalline phases are distributed in randomly micrometric regions through the ceramic volume. Tetragonal regions show higher piezoelectric coefficient and exhibit a higher micro-stress that hardens the ferroelectric response. By the contrary, the occurrence of orthorhombic micro-regions softened the ferroelectric behavior and reduced their piezoelectric coefficients. The ferroelectric response of ceramics is studied, where poling is also shown as a factor that affects the spatial micro-stress distributions. Finally, a model that relates the results obtained by Raman characterization with the ferroelectric properties and stress states is proposed.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under the projects MAT2017-86450-C4-1-R, and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) under the project NANOMIND CSIC 201560E068. Dr. Alberto Moure and Dr. F. Rubio-Marcos are indebted to MINECO for a ‘Ramon y Cajal’ contracts (ref: RYC-2013-14436 and RyC-2015-18626 respectively), which are co-financed by the European Social Fund