Analysis of the Behaviour of Biofuel-Fired Gas Turbine Power Plants

The utilisation of biofuels in gas turbines is a promising alternative to fossil fuels for power generation. It would lead to significant reduction of CO2 emissions using an existing combustion technology, although significant changes seem to be needed and further technological development is necessary. The goal of this work is to perform energy and exergy analyses of the behaviour of gas turbines fired with biogas, ethanol and synthesis gas (bio-syngas), compared with natural gas. The global energy transformation process (i.e. from biomass to electricity) has also been studied. Furthermore, the potential reduction of CO2 emissions attained by the use of biofuels has been determined, considering the restrictions regarding biomass availability. Two different simulation tools have been used to accomplish the aims of this work. The results suggest a high interest and the technical viability of the use of Biomass Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (BIGCC) systems for large scale power generation

Evaluation of Argentine wild sunflower biotypes for drought stress during reproductive stage

As in several regions where sunflower production has moved to areas with limiting water availability, the search for water-stress tolerant genotypes has been intensified. Helianthus annuus ssp. annuus L. constitutes a potential genetic resource because it has naturalized in the semi-arid zone of central Argentina. The assessment of these genetic materials for water deficit tolerance is of interest because they may represent a source of genes for drought tolerance, useful to sunflower breeding. Drought resistant genotypes should be achieved using easily identified phenotypic traits. Parameters like leaf area are widely used to characterize the performance under stress. Leaf temperature is an easily measured physiological parameter that allows an indirect estimate of plant transpiration and is well correlated with water availability. Relative water content indicates the ability to retain water from the soil and expresses plant osmotic adjustment ability. Specific leaf area is a morphological parameter related to leaf thickness. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the drought tolerance of Argentine wild sunflower biotypes and identify morphological and physiological traits expressing differences between stressed biotypes. Wild biotypes were evaluated during three years in the experimental field of the Agronomy Department, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina. Groups of 10-15 plants of each biotype were evaluated under two water conditions, drought (deficit supply) with drip irrigation to cover a half of the potential evapotranspiration during flowering, or with optimal water supply. Soil surface was covered with black polyethylene to exclude rainwater. Wild sunflower comprised five biotypes collected from different habitats in the semiarid region of Argentina. Crosses between the wild biotypes and inbred lines were also included every year. Inbred lines and a commercial hybrid (DK4000) were used as controls. Recorded traits were: plant height, stem diameter, petiole length, leaf area, leaf number, head number and reproductive surface. Leaf parameters were: relative water content (RWC), specific leaf area (SLA), canopy temperature (CT), and chlorophyll content (SPAD). A susceptibility index (SI) was obtained to compare the performance under water stress with that obtained in optimal conditions. Biotype evaluation and parameter characterization were performed separately for each year because water stress levels were different. Wild sunflower responses to water stress were different for all parameters among biotypes, except for plant height and petiole length. Wild biotypes had better RWC and lower SLA than cultivated biotypes. Under water stress wild biotypes showed higher values and greater range of RWC and SPAD than cultivated sunflower. Susceptibility index showed that leaf area of wild sunflower biotypes had lower stress susceptibility than cultivated sunflowers. Nevertheless, wild biotypes showed increased susceptibility to the remaining plant morpho-physiological parameters. RWC and CT had a significant relationship in wild sunflower biotypes under water stress. Drought tolerant type identification was complex because of the complex responses among parameters. Wild biotypes might have a physiological mechanism which allows higher RCA than cultivated sunflower under drought stress. The lower SLA under water deficit could be attributed to a greater leaf thickness and could be related with RCA. Lower leaf area reduction under stress in wild sunflower is an interesting trait that might be used to improve cultivated sunflower. As the RWC is related with CT under stress in wild biotypes, this trait evaluation allows the fast examination of a high number of plants. The assessment of Argentina wild sunflower biotypes for traits associated with drought tolerance has not yet been done. Their identification could increase sunflower crop yield under drought in semiarid regions.Fil: Fernández Moroni, Ivana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Agronomía; ArgentinaFil: Fraysse, M.. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Agronomía; ArgentinaFil: Presotto, Alejandro Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Agronomía; ArgentinaFil: Cantamutto, Miguel Ángel. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; Argentin

Solving Sudoku with Membrane Computing

Sudoku is a very popular puzzle which consists on placing several numbers in a squared grid according to some simple rules. In this paper we present an efficient family of P systems which solve sudokus of any order verifying a specific property. The solution is searched by using a simple human-style method. If the sudoku cannot be solved by using this strategy, the P system detects this drawback and then the computations stops and returns No. Otherwise, the P system encodes the solution and returns Yes in the last computation step.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2008-04487-EMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2009–13192Junta de Andalucía P08-TIC-0420

Effect of hyperlipidic diets on normal and abnormal aortic valves in the Syrian hamster: A preliminary study

Effect of hyperlipidic diets on normal and abnormal aortic valves in the Syrian hamster: A preliminary study. MC Fernández 1,2, J Moncayo-Arlandi 1, MT Soto 1, MA López-Unzu 1, B Fernández 1,2 and AC Durán 1,2. 1 Department of Animal Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Málaga, Spain. 2 Biomedical Research Institute of Málaga (IBIMA), University of Málaga, Spain. Bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) is the most frequent human congenital cardiac malformation. It frequently becomes stenotic due to calcification by an atherosclerosis-like process. Hyperlipidic diets have been classically used to induce atherosclerosis in laboratory animals, including Syrian hamsters. The aim here is to evaluate the effect of hyperlipidic diets in hamsters having different incidence of BAVs. We used a unique inbred strain of Syrian hamsters with a high ( 40%) incidence of spontaneous BAV, morphologically similar to that in man, another inbred strain with a low ( 4%) incidence of BAV, and an outbred, second control line, acquired from Charles River Laboratories. Three experimental groups were fed with standard diet supplemented with 2% cholesterol plus 15% butter during five months. In parallel, three control groups were fed with unmodified standard diet. Hyperlipidic diets induced lesions in the aortic valve and ascending aortic wall, i.e. subendothelial lipid deposits, valve sclerosis, and neo-intima in the aorta. We performed a preliminary, qualitative, comparative study of the lesions associated with the different animal populations and valvular phenotypes. Our results indicate that (1) the type and severity of the lesions varied among the three hamster populations, suggesting that genetic factors may be involved; (2) the aortic valve morphology seems not to determine the severity of the valvular lesions. We conclude that our hamster strain with high incidence of BAV is a promising animal model for studies on human aortic stenosis. This work was supported by P10-CTS-6068.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Andalucía Tech. P10-CTS-6068

New Mediterranean Marine biodiversity records (December, 2013)

M. Bilecenoglu [et al.]Based on recent biodiversity studies carried out in different parts of the Mediterranean, the following 19 species are included as new records on the floral or faunal lists of the relevant ecosystems: the green algae Penicillus capitatus (Maltese waters); the nemertean Amphiporus allucens (Iberian Peninsula, Spain); the salp Salpa maxima (Syria); the opistobranchs Felimida britoi and Berghia coerulescens (Aegean Sea, Greece); the dusky shark Carcharhinus obscurus (central-west Mediterranean and Ionian Sea, Italy); Randall’s threadfin bream Nemipterus randalli, the broadbanded cardinalfish Apogon fasciatus and the goby Gobius kolombatovici (Aegean Sea, Turkey); the reticulated leatherjack Stephanolepis diaspros and the halacarid Agaue chevreuxi (Sea of Marmara, Turkey); the slimy liagora Ganonema farinosum, the yellowstripe barracuda Sphyraena chrysotaenia, the rayed pearl oyster Pinctada imbricata radiata and the Persian conch Conomurex persicus (south-eastern Crete, Greece); the blenny Microlipophrys dalmatinus and the bastard grunt Pomadasys incisus (Ionian Sea, Italy); the brown shrimp Farfantepenaeus aztecus (north-eastern Levant, Turkey); the blue-crab Callinectes sapidus (Corfu, Ionian Sea, Greece). In addition, the findings of the following rare species improve currently available biogeographical knowledge: the oceanic pufferfish Lagocephalus lagocephalus (Malta); the yellow sea chub Kyphosus incisor (Almuñécar coast of Spain); the basking shark Cetorhinus maximus and the shortfin mako Isurus oxyrinchus (north-eastern Levant, Turkey).Peer reviewe

Concurrent focal-plane generation of compressed samples fromtime-encoded pixel values

Compressive sampling allows wrapping the relevant content of an image in a reduced set of data. It exploits the sparsity of natural images. This principle can be employed to deliver images over a network under a restricted data rate and still receive enough meaningful information. An efficient implementation of this principle lies in the generation of the compressed samples right at the imager. Otherwise, i. e. digitizing the complete image and then composing the compressed samples in the digital plane, the required memory and processing resources can seriously compromise the budget of an autonomous camera node. In this paper we present the design of a pixel architecture that encodes light intensity into time, followed by a global strategy to pseudo-randomly combine pixel values and generate, on-chip and on-line, the compressed samples.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TEC 2015-66878-C3-1-RJunta de Andalucía TIC 2338-2013Office of Naval Research (USA) N000141410355CONACYT (Mexico) MZO-2017-29106

Alkaline activation of metakaolin. Effect of the soluble silicate addition and curing temperature

[ES] El objetivo del presente trabajo es determinar el efecto que la cantidad de sílice soluble presente en la disolución activadora (relación molar SiO2/Na2O entre 0 y 0.69) y la temperatura de curado (85ºC, 150ºC y 200ºC) ejercen sobre las propiedades físico-mecánicas y las características mineralógicas y microestructurales de los productos formados por activación alcalina de metacaolín. Para ello se determinaron los valores de resistencia mecánica a compresión de los materiales objeto de estudio y se realizó un estudio mineralógico y microestructural de los mismos por DRX, SEM-EDX, 29Si RMN-MAS y porosimetría de mercurio. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que la resistencia mecánica del material guarda una estrecha relación con la naturaleza, microestructura y composición química de los productos de reacción así como con las condiciones de curado. En todos los casos se genera, como principal producto de reacción, un polímero inorgánico alcalino con propiedades cementantes (gel N-A-S-H) responsable, en mayor medida, de las propiedades mecánicas del material. Como productos secundarios se forman algunas zeolitas cuya proporción y tipo (sodalita, zeolita A, faujasita, …) dependen tanto de la naturaleza del activador como de las condiciones de curado. La presencia de sílice soluble en la disolución activadora conduce a la formación de geles con una mayor relación Si/Al y a la ralentización de la zeolitización, factores, ambos, con un efecto positivo sobre la resistencia mecánica. Con respecto a la temperatura de curado, existe un valor umbral, en función de la composición del material, a partir del cual un incremento en dicha temperatura deja de tener efectos positivos sobre la evolución de la resistencia mecánica.[EN] This study has been undertaken to determine the effect that the soluble silica content in the activating solution (molar ratio SiO2/Na2O between 0 and 0.69) and curing temperature (85ºC, 150ºC, and 200ºC) have on the physico-mechanical properties and mineralogical and microstructural characteristics of products formed by alkaline activation of metakaolin. The compression strength of the materials obtained was determined and a mineralogical and microstructural study of these materials was conducted by XRD, SEM-EDX, 29Si MAS-NMR, and mercury porosimetry. The results show that the mechanical strength of the material is closely related to the nature, microstructure, and chemical composition of the reaction products, as well as to the curing conditions. In all cases, the main reaction product that forms is an inorganic alkaline polymer with cementing properties (N-A-S-H gel), which is largely responsible for the mechanical properties of the material. Some zeolites form as by-products, whose quantity and type (sodalite, zeolite A, faujasite, etc.) depend on the nature of the activator and the curing conditions. The presence of soluble silica in the activating solution leads to the formation of gels with a larger Si/Al ratio and slower zeolitisation, these both being factors with a positive effect on mechanical strength. The curing temperature exhibits a threshold value that depends on the composition of the material, beyond which an increase in curing temperature ceases to positively affect the evolution of the material’s mechanical strength.Programa de Alta Especialización en Tecnologías Industriales “Nuevas técnicas y recubrimientos cerámicos de baja temperatura” (IMAETA/2004/15-IMAETB/2005/12-IMAETB/2006/18) financiado por el Instituto de la Pequeña y Mediana Industria de la Generalitat Valenciana (IMPIVA) y a la Uunión Europea (Fondo Social Europeo), a la Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica por la financiación del proyecto BIA2004-04835 y al CSIC/Fondo Social Europeo por el contrato de investigador en prácticas REF I3P-PC2004L.Peer reviewe

Robust people detection by fusion of evidence from multiple methods

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. V. Fernández-Carbajales, M. A. García, and J. M. Martínez, "Robust People Detection by Fusion of Evidence from Multiple Methods", in Ninth International Workshop on Image Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services, 2008. WIAMIS 2008, p. 55-58.This paper describes and evaluates an algorithm for real-time people detection in video sequences based on the fusion of evidence provided by three simple independent people detectors. Experiments with real video sequences show that the proposed integration-based approach is effective, robust and fast by combining simple algorithms.This work is supported by Cátedra Infoglobal-UAM para “Nuevas tecnologías de vídeo aplicadas a la seguridad”, the Spanish Government (TEC2007- 65400 SemanticVideo) and the Comunidad de Madrid (S-050/TIC-0223 - ProMultiDis-CM)

The logistic decision making in management accounting with genetic algoritms and fuzzy sets

The logistics problems in business environments deal with assignation from a number of sources to a number of destinations. Each source offers amounts of goods, while each destination demands quantities of these goods. The object is to find the cheapest transporting schedule that satisfies the demand without violating supply restraints. In this paper we propose to use Fuzzy Sets to represents the previsional information related to costs, demands and other variables. Moreover, we suggest including the problem of shortest route for the distribution vehicles. Finally, to solve this complex problem we propose to use a Genetic Algorithm with a Fuzzy Fitness Function

Differences in the relative roles of environment, prey availability and human activity in the spatial distribution of two marine mesopredators living in highly exploited ecosystems

Aim Identifying the main factors affecting the spatial distribution of marine predators is essential in order to evaluate their distribution patterns, predict the potential impact of human activities on their populations and design accurate management actions. This information is also valuable from a more general management perspective, since marine predators are often considered indicators of habitat quality. In this context, we aimed to determine the degree to which environmental features, prey availability and human activities interact and influence spatial distribution of two marine mesopredator elasmobranchs, the small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) and the Mediterranean starry ray (Raja asterias), living in a highly human-exploited environment. Location Mediterranean Sea. Methods With information obtained from an extended experimental survey we investigated the relative importance of environmental variables, prey availability and human activities on the spatial distribution of the abundance, biomass and occurrence rate of these marine mesopredators using deviance partitioning analyses. Results Our results revealed that environmental variables were the most important factors explaining the spatial distribution of Mediterranean starry ray, whereas small-spotted catshark distribution was also influenced by prey availability and human factors. From a management point of view, these findings suggest that Mediterranean starry ray could be a good candidate as an indicator species of demersal environmental quality. On the other hand, the distribution of the small-spotted catshark, which responds in an interactive and complex way to environment, prey availability and particular human activities, may be misleading as an environmental indicator. Main conclusions The spatial distribution of elasmobranchs in highly human-impacted marine areas can reflect the interactive and combined effects of multiple factors. To avoid misunderstandings, attention should be paid to statistical procedures allowing the separation of pure and joint contribution of the factors driving the observed spatial patternsPeer reviewe