Analysis and modeling of a ooding event in the framework of the DRIHM project

Treballs Finals de Grau de Física, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Any: 2015, Tutora: M. Carme LlasatIn early November 2011 a pertorbation affecting the Mediterranean area led to heavy rainfall and ash- oods in Catalonia and northern Italy. This paper analyses the situation that led to that event and compares the use of different modeling scenarios in the framework of the DRIHM project, which provides tools for the interoperability of meteorological and hydrological models. A synthesis of the main models used in operative simulations for ooding events is also presented

Carreño de Miranda, artistic advisor to the tenth admiral of Castile

El presente trabajo analiza el papel de Carreño de Miranda como asesor artístico de Juan Gaspar Enríquez de Cabrera, X almirante de Castilla y uno de los principales coleccionistas del XVII español, que confió en el pintor de Cámara de Carlos II para certificar la originalidad de las pinturas enviadas desde Venecia por el marqués de Villagarcía. Partiendo de la correspondencia que el almirante mantuvo con éste último, hemos localizado un Eneas y Anquises de Schiavone que pasó de su colección a la imperial de Viena, como sucedió con dos retratos de Van Dyck, hoy en el Kunsthistorisches Museum, que hemos identificado gracias a un dibujo realizado por Carreño cuando las pinturas se encontraban en la Huerta del almirante.This paper analyses the role of Carreño de Miranda as art advisor of Juan Gaspar Enríquez de Cabrera, 10th admiral of Castile and one of the greatest noble collectors in 17th century Spain. The admiral trusted the Court painter to assert the originality of the paintings sent from Venice by the marquis of Villagarcía. Thanks to the correspondence he maintained with this agent we have located an Aeneas and Anchises by Schiavone which passed from the admiral’s collection to the imperial collection in Vienna. The same happened with two portraits by Van Dyck, now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which we have identified through a sketch by Carreño

Caracterització de l’instant inicial de l’activitat elèctrica en tempestes

Màster de Meteorologia, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2015-2016, Tutor: Joan BechCombinant la informació que proporcionen les dades d’un sistema de detecció de llamps, alguns productes de radar i perfils de temperatura extrets de radiosondatges, es determina amb precisió la posició i instant de temps en què té lloc l’inici de l’activitat elèctrica en un conjunt de 18 casos d’estudi seleccionats de tempestes que s’originen a prop del Delta de l’Ebre. Estudiant els perfils de reflectivitats i la distribució vertical de temperatura en aquests punts es caracteritzen les variables analitzades per tal de trobar quins valors són més probables que s’assoleixin en l’instant en què s’enregistra la primera descàrrega d’una tempesta. Els resultats indiquen que en l’altitud a la qual s’inicia l’activitat elèctrica, el valor més probable de la temperatura és de -10ºC, i la reflectivitat màxima més freqüent del perfil vertical és de 40 dBZ, que es troba als nivells corresponents a -10ºC, on s’espera que estiguin situades les partícules de calabruix, i al nivell de 5ºC, degut a un efecte de banda brillant. D’altra banda, localitzant els nivells on es troben certs valors de reflectivitat, la combinació que es dóna més freqüentment en els instants inicials és de 35 dBZ al nivell de -15ºC. Altres combinacions que es repeteixen indiquen la presència d’una separació de càrregues dins del núvol en forma de distribució tripolar. Finalment, es troba que les cel·les tenen una extensió vertical mínima de 7 km, podent superar els 10 km, en l’instant en què es detecta el primer llam

Diplomacia y cultura nobiliaria: el X almirante de Castilla y la embajada extraordinaria del duque de Gramont en Madrid

The marriage of Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa of Spain sanctioned the end of the Franco-Spanish war (1635-1659). The terms of the peace treaty and the marriage agreement were the result of a long negotiation which conclude with the extraordinary embassy sent to Madrid, led by Antoine III Gramont, marshal of France and duke of Gramont. In this article, we examine different aspects of the entry, reception and regalement of the French embassy at the court of Philip IV. For this purpose, we have considered an extensive corpus of textual sources (accounts, diaries, memories, poetical compositions and archival documents) that supply information about those events. We have focused our attention on the role played by the nobility -in particular, by Juan Gaspar Enríquez de Cabrera, 10th Admiral of Castile-, considering at the same time the relevant function of the material culture in early modern diplomacy.El matrimonio de Luis XIV y María Teresa de Austria, celebrado el 9 de junio de 1660, sancionó el final del conflicto que había enfrentado a las monarquías francesa y española durante casi veinticinco años. Los términos del tratado de paz y del acuerdo matrimonial fueron resultado de largas negociaciones que culminaron con el envío a Madrid de una embajada extraordinaria encabezada por Antoine III Gramont, mariscal de Francia y II duque de Gramont. En el presente artículo analizamos diferentes cuestiones referentes a la entrada, recepción y agasajo de la embajada del Rey Cristianísimo en la corte de Felipe IV, recurriendo para ello al amplio corpus de fuentes textuales (avisos, relaciones, diarios, memorias, composiciones poéticas y documentación de archivo) que dan noticia de estos acontecimientos. Nuestro interés se ha centrado en la función concedida a la cultura material, así como en el papel desempeñado por la nobleza cortesana -en particular por Juan Gaspar Enríquez de Cabrera, X almirante de Castilla- en el desarrollo del ceremonial desplegado con motivo de la presencia en Madrid de la delegación francesa

2005-2017 Ozone trends and potential benefits of local measures as deduced from air quality measurements in the north of the Barcelona metropolitan area

We analyzed 2005–2017 data sets on ozone (O3) concentrations in an area (the Vic Plain) frequently affected by the atmospheric plume northward transport of the Barcelona metropolitan area (BMA), the atmospheric basin of Spain recording the highest number of exceedances of the hourly O3 information threshold (180¿µg¿m-3). We aimed at evaluating the potential benefits of implementing local-BMA short-term measures to abate emissions of precursors. To this end, we analyzed in detail spatial and time variations of concentration of O3 and nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2, including OMI remote sensing data for the latter). Subsequently, a sensitivity analysis is done with the air quality (AQ) data to evaluate potential O3 reductions in the north of the BMA on Sundays compared with weekdays as a consequence of the reduction in regional emissions of precursors. The results showed a generalized decreasing trend for regional background O3 as well as the well-known increase in urban O3 and higher urban NO decreasing slopes compared with those of NO2. The most intensive O3 episodes in the Vic Plain are caused by (i) a relatively high regional background O3 (due to a mix of continental, hemispheric–tropospheric and stratospheric contributions); by (ii) intensive surface fumigation from mid-troposphere high O3 upper layers arising from the concatenation of the vertical recirculation of air masses; but also by (iii) an important O3 contribution from the northward transport/channeling of the pollution plume from the BMA. The high relevance of the local-daily O3 contribution during the most intense pollution episodes is clearly supported by the O3 (surface concentration) and NO2 (OMI data) data analysis. A maximum decrease potential (by applying short-term measures to abate emissions of O3 precursors) of 49¿µg¿O3¿m-3 (32¿%) of the average diurnal concentrations was determined. Structurally implemented measures, instead of episodically, could result in important additional O3 decreases because not only the local O3 coming from the BMA plume would be reduced, but also the recirculated O3 and thus the intensity of O3 fumigation in the plain. Therefore, it is highly probable that both structural and episodic measures to abate NOx and volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions in the BMA would result in evident reductions of O3 in the Vic PlainPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Changes in air quality during the lockdown in Barcelona (Spain) one month into the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic

Lockdown measures came into force in Spain from March 14th, two weeks after the start of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, to reduce the epidemic curve. Our study aims to describe changes in air pollution levels during the lockdown measures in the city of Barcelona (NE Spain), by studying the time evolution of atmospheric pollutants recorded at the urban background and traffic air quality monitoring stations. After two weeks of lockdown, urban air pollution markedly decreased but with substantial differences among pollutants. The most significant reduction was estimated for BC and NO2 (−45 to −51%), pollutants mainly related to traffic emissions. A lower reduction was observed for PM10 (−28 to −31.0%). By contrast, O3 levels increased (+33 to +57% of the 8 h daily maxima), probably due to lower titration of O3 by NO and the decrease of NOx in a VOC-limited environment. Relevant differences in the meteorology of these two periods were also evidenced. The low reduction for PM10 is probably related to a significant regional contribution and the prevailing secondary origin of fine aerosols, but an in-depth evaluation has to be carried out to interpret this lower decrease. There is no defined trend for the low SO2 levels, probably due to the preferential reduction in emissions from the least polluting ships. A reduction of most pollutants to minimal concentrations are expected for the forthcoming weeks because of the more restrictive actions implemented for a total lockdown, which entered into force on March 30th. There are still open questions on why PM10 levels were much less reduced than BC and NO2 and on what is the proportion of the abatement of pollution directly related to the lockdown, without meteorological interferences.The present work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing, Food and Environment, Madrid City Council and Madrid Regional Government, by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness and FEDER funds under the project HOUSE (CGL2016-78594-R), and by the Generalitat de Catalunya (AGAUR 2015 SGR33), and by the Spanish Ministry of Sciences, Innovation and Universities (EQC2018-004598-P).Peer reviewe

Unlinking summer new particle formation and high ozone episodes

New particle formation (NPF) and ozone (O3) episodes are products of photochemically-driven processes. However, O3 formation occurs under the presence of precursors (Monks et al., 2015), whereas NPF usually requires clean atmospheres (Boy and Kulmala, 2002). Clustering studies on particle number size distribution (PNSD) time series in high insolation urban areas revealed the frequent occurrence of photochemical NPF in spring and summer (Brines et al., 2015). Averaged O3 concentrations reached the highest concentrations for the NPF-cluster in most of the studied cities. We intend here to elucidate if this simultaneous peaking of NPF and O3 is due to the similar seasonal patterns of both pollutants or because NPF episodes coincide with high O3 episodes. To this end we analyzed 2014-2018 spring and summer time series of PNSD and O3 concentrations at Montseny, a regional background station 40 km NE of Barcelona (Spain) included in the ACTRIS and GAW networks.We categorized NPF events with the method proposed by (Dal Maso et al., 2005). K-means clustering was applied to the O3 daily series. The number of clusters was chosen so that only one clusters contained all the days registering an exceedance of the information value (180 μg m-3 h-1), using the minimum number of clusters. This was achieved by using 4 clusters. For each of them we studied the occurrence of NPF and the average daily cycles of other variables: PNSD, concentration of NO2, SO2, and PM1, and meteorological variables. The results suggest that, for spring and summer, the highest regional background UFPs concentrations coincide with the highest O3 episodes, but the probability of NPF during these days is the lowest, even though the nucleation-mode number concentration is the highest. These days also present the maximum temperature, solar radiation, and wind speed, and the lowest relative humidity. The condensation sink and concentration of other pollutants are also the highest and peak simultaneously with the wind speed. This suggests that during these days pollutants are transported from the Barcelona metropolitan area to the regional background station. Conversely, when the plume does not reach the station, UFPs and O3 concentrations are the lowest, and the probability of NPF is the highest

Extreme ozone episodes in a major Mediterranean urban area

This study analyses three extreme ozone (O3) episodes that occurred in Barcelona (NE Spain) during the summers of 2015, 2018, and 2019. These episodes exceeded the EU's hourly information threshold (180 µg m−3) for the first time since at least the year 2000, raising concerns due to Barcelona's large population. By employing experimental data and various modelling tools, our main objective is to elucidate the underlying phenomena of these recent O3 episodes and improve predictive capabilities. The findings indicate that the factors contributing to these occurrences are largely consistent across episodes. These factors, with estimated O3 contributions specified for particular instances, comprise (i) initial O3 accumulation in surrounding coastal areas; (ii) weekend occurrence, accompanied by the corresponding weekend effect (+15 µg m−3); and (iii) the prevalence of Tramontana meteorological conditions during above-normal temperatures, which (iv) force the convergence of multiregional polluted air masses to the city (+45–65 µg m−3). Major source areas include regions of southern France through the Gulf of Lion, the interior of the Mediterranean, and eastern Spanish coastal regions, including Barcelona's pollution plume. Some of these factors, which may manifest in the days preceding the episodes, are observable or can be anticipated. This study enhances understanding of the mechanisms driving extreme O3 episodes recently observed in Barcelona and provides valuable insights for prediction

Dimensionality reduction and ensemble of LSTMs for antimicrobial resistance prediction

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics has been rapidly increasing, resulting in a low antibiotic effectiveness even treating common infections. The presence of resistant pathogens in environments such as a hospital Intensive Care Unit (ICU) exacerbates the critical admission-acquired infections. This work focuses on the prediction of antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa nosocomial infections at the ICU, using Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) artificial neural networks as predictive method. The analyzed data were extracted from the Electronic Health Records (EHR) of patients admitted in the University Hospital of Fuenlabrada from 2004 to 2019, and were modeled as Multivariate Time Series. A data-driven dimensionality reduction method is built by adapting three feature importance techniques from the literature to the considered data, and proposing an algorithm for selecting the most appropriate number of features. This is done using LSTM sequential capabilities so that the temporal aspect of features is taken into account. Furthermore, an ensemble of LSTMs is used to reduce the performance variance. Our results indicate that the patient's admission information, the antibiotics administered during the ICU stay, and the previous antimicrobial resistance are the most important features. The proposed dimensionality reduction method dramatically reduces the number of features while considerably increasing the prediction performance. The variance in the performance is reduced by considering the ensemble of classifiers. In essence, the proposed framework achieve, in a computationally cost efficient manner, promising results for supporting decisions in this clinical task, characterized by high dimensionality, data scarcity and concept drift.This work has been partly supported by the Spanish Research Agency, grant numbers PID2019-106623RB-C41, AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (BigTheory), PID2019-107768RA-I00 (AAVis-BMR), by funding action by the Community of Madrid in the framework of the Multiannual Agreement with Rey Juan Carlos University in line of action 1 ‘‘Encouragement of Young Phd students investigation’’ Project Mapping-UCI (Ref F661), by the IDEAI-UPC Consolidated Research Group Grant from Catalan Agency of University and Research Grants (AGAUR, Generalitat de Catalunya) (2017 SGR 574) and by the Secretariat for Universities and Research of the Ministry of Research and Universities of the Government of Catalonia and the European Social Fund (2021 FI-B 00965).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Antimicrobial Resistance Prediction in Intensive Care Unit for Pseudomonas Aeruginosa using Temporal Data-Driven Models

One threatening medical problem for human beings is the increasing antimicrobial resistance of some microorganisms. This problem is especially difficult in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) of hospitals due to the vulnerable state of patients. Knowing in advance whether a concrete bacterium is resistant or susceptible to an antibiotic is a crux step for clinicians to determine an effective antibiotic treatment. This usual clinical procedure takes approximately 48 hours and it is named antibiogram. It tests the bacterium resistance to one or more antimicrobial families (six of them considered in this work). This article focuses on cultures of the Pseudomonas Aeruginosa bacterium because is one of the most dangerous in the ICU. Several temporal data-driven models are proposed and analyzed to predict the resistance or susceptibility to a determined antibiotic family previously to know the antibiogram result and only using the available past information from a data set. This data set is formed by anonymized electronic health records data from more than 3300 ICU patients during 15 years. Several data-driven classifier methods are used in combination with several temporal modeling approaches. The results show that our predictions are reasonably accurate for some antimicrobial families, and could be used by clinicians to determine the best antibiotic therapy in advance. This early prediction can save valuable time to start the adequate treatment for an ICU patient. This study corroborates the results of a previous work pointing that the antimicrobial resistance of bacteria in the ICU is related to other recent resistance tests of ICU patients. This information is very valuable for making accurate antimicrobial resistance predictions