Nuclear Reaction Studies using Stored Ion Beams at ESR with EXL

In this work, as part of the EXL project nuclear reactions are investigated in inverse kinematics experiments with stored ion-beams. These experiments were carried out at the heavy ion storage ring ESR at GSI with stored 58Ni (at 100 and 150 MeV/u) and 20Ne (at 50 MeV/u) beams. The 58Ni beam was impinged on an internal gas-jet target of helium, while for the 20Ne experiment the internal gas-jet target utilized was hydrogen. The recoil particles produced in different reaction channels were measured with a dedicated detector setup compatible with the Ultra High Vacuum (UHV) in the storage ring. This detector setup included double-sided silicon-strip detectors operating as active barriers between the UHV of the storage ring and an auxiliary vacuum of internal pockets of the experimental chamber. This permitted successful measurements of low energy recoils (hundreds of keV), since both target and detectors were windowless. Nuclear reaction channels like elastic scattering, excitation of isoscalar giant resonances and neutron pick-up were observed in these experiments. The angular distributions for elastic scattering were analyzed with optical potentials deduced from density-folding models. In particular, the elastic differential cross sections for 58Ni+ alpha were fitted by using the t-rho rho potential which is based on the optical limit approximation of the Glauber theory. The resulting RMS point matter-radii are 3.68(10) fm and 3.64(9) fm for the measurements at 100 and 150 MeV/u, respectively. These results are in very good agreement with the literature values. The excitation of isoscalar giant resonances has been studied for the first time in a stored-beam experiment. In the double-differential cross section measured for 58Ni+ alpha at 100 MeV/u, a well-defined peak in the energy range from 15 to 30 MeV was obtained. A fit with a Lorentz function for the Iso-Scalar Giant Monopole Resonance (ISGMR) component resulted in a centroid of 19.27(61) MeV and a width of 6.45(51) MeV. Moreover, a multipole decomposition analysis was performed to extract the ISGMR contribution. The extracted strength of the ISGMR exhausts 79^{+12}_{-11} \% of the Energy-Weighted Sum Rule (EWSR). The results are consistent with the analysis of other experiments performed in the past in normal kinematics as well as theoretical predictions. A neutron pick-up reaction was measured in the experiment with the stored 20Ne beam. In this experiment, the contribution of the transfer to the ground state and to low-lying states of 19Ne were not kinematically separable. In order to disentangle the different components, a multipole decomposition analysis was applied to the experimental data. Spectroscopic factors were deduced from the analysis of the differential cross section for this transfer reaction. These results are in very good agreement with the predictions from shell model calculations. The feasibility to perform different types of nuclear reactions with stored ion beams and an internal target by using in-ring detection is successfully demonstrated in this work. This is a paramount milestone toward further EXL experiments with radioactive beams at GSI and in future at FAIR

Accurate Ambient Noise Assessment Using Smartphones

[EN] Nowadays, smartphones have become ubiquitous and one of the main communication resources for human beings. Their widespread adoption was due to the huge technological progress and to the development of multiple useful applications. Their characteristics have also experienced a substantial improvement as they now integrate multiple sensors able to convert the smartphone into a flexible and multi-purpose sensing unit. The combined use of multiple smartphones endowed with several types of sensors gives the possibility to monitor a certain area with fine spatial and temporal granularity, a procedure typically known as crowdsensing. In this paper, we propose using smartphones as environmental noise-sensing units. For this purpose, we focus our study on the sound capture and processing procedure, analyzing the impact of different noise calculation algorithms, as well as in determining their accuracy when compared to a professional noise measurement unit. We analyze different candidate algorithms using different types of smartphones, and we study the most adequate time period and sampling strategy to optimize the data-gathering process. In addition, we perform an experimental study comparing our approach with the results obtained using a professional device. Experimental results show that, if the smartphone application is well tuned, it is possible to measure noise levels with a accuracy degree comparable to professional devices for the entire dynamic range typically supported by microphones embedded in smartphones, i.e., 35 95 dB.This work was partially supported by the “Programa Estatal de Investigación, Desarrollo e InnovaciOn Orientada a Retos de la Sociedad, Proyecto TEC2014-52690-R”, the “Universidad Laica Eloy Alfaro de Manabí” and the “Programa de Becas SENESCYTde la República del Ecuador.”Zamora-Mero, WJ.; Tavares De Araujo Cesariny Calafate, CM.; Cano, J.; Manzoni, P. (2017). Accurate Ambient Noise Assessment Using Smartphones. Sensors. 17(4):1-18. doi:10.3390/s17040917S118174Noise European Environment Agencyhttp://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/noise/introZannin, P. H. T., Ferreira, A. M. C., & Szeremetta, B. (2006). Evaluation of Noise Pollution in Urban Parks. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 118(1-3), 423-433. doi:10.1007/s10661-006-1506-6Kanjo, E. (2009). NoiseSPY: A Real-Time Mobile Phone Platform for Urban Noise Monitoring and Mapping. Mobile Networks and Applications, 15(4), 562-574. doi:10.1007/s11036-009-0217-yAssessment and management of environmental noise (EU Directive)http://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2002/49/ojCommission Directive (EU) 2015/ 996 of 19 May 2015http://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2015/996/ojLane, N., Miluzzo, E., Lu, H., Peebles, D., Choudhury, T., & Campbell, A. (2010). A survey of mobile phone sensing. IEEE Communications Magazine, 48(9), 140-150. doi:10.1109/mcom.2010.5560598Ganti, R., Ye, F., & Lei, H. (2011). Mobile crowdsensing: current state and future challenges. IEEE Communications Magazine, 49(11), 32-39. doi:10.1109/mcom.2011.6069707Guo, B., Wang, Z., Yu, Z., Wang, Y., Yen, N. Y., Huang, R., & Zhou, X. (2015). Mobile Crowd Sensing and Computing. ACM Computing Surveys, 48(1), 1-31. doi:10.1145/2794400Maisonneuve, N., Stevens, M., Niessen, M. E., & Steels, L. (2009). NoiseTube: Measuring and mapping noise pollution with mobile phones. Environmental Science and Engineering, 215-228. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-88351-7_16Rana, R., Chou, C. T., Bulusu, N., Kanhere, S., & Hu, W. (2015). Ear-Phone: A context-aware noise mapping using smart phones. Pervasive and Mobile Computing, 17, 1-22. doi:10.1016/j.pmcj.2014.02.001Kardous, C. A., & Shaw, P. B. (2014). Evaluation of smartphone sound measurement applications. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 135(4), EL186-EL192. doi:10.1121/1.4865269Le Prell, C., Nast, D., & Speer, W. (2014). Sound level measurements using smartphone «apps»: Useful or inaccurate? Noise and Health, 16(72), 251. doi:10.4103/1463-1741.140495Sonometer PCE322Ahttp://www.pce-iberica.es/medidor-detalles-tecnicos/instrumento-de-ruido/sonometro-con-logger-de-datos-sl-322.htmKardous, C. A., & Shaw, P. B. (2016). Evaluation of smartphone sound measurement applications (apps) using external microphones—A follow-up study. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 140(4), EL327-EL333. doi:10.1121/1.4964639Zamora, W., Calafate, C. T., Cano, J.-C., & Manzoni, P. (2016). A Survey on Smartphone-Based Crowdsensing Solutions. Mobile Information Systems, 2016, 1-26. doi:10.1155/2016/9681842Electroacoustics—Sound level meters—Part 1: Specificationshttps://webstore.iec.ch/publication/5708Samsung Galaxy S7 edge SM-G935T Complimentary Teardown Report with Additional Commentaryhttp://www.techinsights.com/about-techinsights/overview/blog/samsung-galaxy-s7-edge-teardown

Leveraging a Publish/Subscribe Fog System to Provide Collision Warnings in Vehicular Networks

[EN] Fog computing, an extension of the Cloud Computing paradigm where routers themselves may provide the virtualisation infrastructure, aims at achieving fluidity when distributing in-network functions, in addition to allowing fast and scalable processing, and exchange of information. In this paper we present a fog computing architecture based on a content island which interconnects sets of things to exchange and process data among themselves or with other content islands. We then present a use case that focuses on a smartphone-based forward collision warning application for a connected vehicle scenario. This application makes use of the optical sensor of smartphones to estimate the distance between the device itself and other vehicles in its field of view. The vehicle travelling directly ahead is identified relying on the information from the GPS, camera, and inter-island communication. Warnings are generated at both content islands, if the driver does not maintain a predefined safe distance towards the vehicle ahead. Experiments performed with the application show that with the developed method, we are able to estimate the distance between vehicles, and the inter-island communication has a very low overhead, resulting in improved performance. On comparing our proposed solution based on edge/fog computing with a cloud-based api, it was observed that our solution outperformed the cloud-based api, thus making us optimistic of the utility of the proposed architectureThis work was partially funding by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Programa Estatal de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad, Proyectos I+D+I 2018 , Spain, under Grant RTI2018-096384-B-I00Patra, S.; Manzoni, P.; Tavares De Araujo Cesariny Calafate, CM.; Zamora-Mero, WJ.; Cano, J. (2019). Leveraging a Publish/Subscribe Fog System to Provide Collision Warnings in Vehicular Networks. Sensors. 19(18):1-22. https://doi.org/10.3390/s19183852S1221918Vaquero, L. M., & Rodero-Merino, L. (2014). Finding your Way in the Fog. ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, 44(5), 27-32. doi:10.1145/2677046.2677052MQTT Version 3.1.1 http://docs.oasis-open.org/mqtt/mqtt/v3.1.1/os/mqtt-v3.1.1-os.docSultana, T., & Wahid, K. A. (2019). Choice of Application Layer Protocols for Next Generation Video Surveillance Using Internet of Video Things. IEEE Access, 7, 41607-41624. doi:10.1109/access.2019.2907525Mehmood, F., Ullah, I., Ahmad, S., & Kim, D. (2019). Object detection mechanism based on deep learning algorithm using embedded IoT devices for smart home appliances control in CoT. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing. doi:10.1007/s12652-019-01272-8https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7252Volvo Official Website https://www.volvocars.com/Chang, B. R., Tsai, H. F., & Young, C.-P. (2010). Intelligent data fusion system for predicting vehicle collision warning using vision/GPS sensing. Expert Systems with Applications, 37(3), 2439-2450. doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2009.07.036Tan, H.-S., & Huang, J. (2006). DGPS-Based Vehicle-to-Vehicle Cooperative Collision Warning: Engineering Feasibility Viewpoints. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 7(4), 415-428. doi:10.1109/tits.2006.883938Gelernter, D. (1985). Generative communication in Linda. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, 7(1), 80-112. doi:10.1145/2363.2433Raspberry Pi Official Website https://www.raspberrypi.org/https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc768Wallace, G. K. (1991). The JPEG still picture compression standard. Communications of the ACM, 34(4), 30-44. doi:10.1145/103085.103089Sauvola, J., & Pietikäinen, M. (2000). Adaptive document image binarization. Pattern Recognition, 33(2), 225-236. doi:10.1016/s0031-3203(99)00055-2Road Safety Authority of Ireland Suggest the Use of Two Second Rule http://www.rotr.ie/Rules_of_the_road.pdfOpenALPR Cloud-API Website https://www.openalpr.com/cloud-api.htmlPatra, S., Calafate, C. T., Cano, J.-C., & Manzoni, P. (2015). An ITS solution providing real-time visual overtaking assistance using smartphones. 2015 IEEE 40th Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN). doi:10.1109/lcn.2015.736632

Desarrollo de un laboratorio de metrología dimensional y de temperatura.

Proyecto de Investigación. Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica. Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Extensión (VIE). Escuela de Física, 2010This building activity research is focused on developing appropriate conditions to enable the School of Physics have an Metrology Laboratory in temperature and dimensional variables. Across the project was managed properly locate the equipment purchased by the school, in addition to the designs of a possible laboratory and make progress efforts to obtain the necessary physical space. On the other hand it was possible to establish basic work procedures calibration and control equipment and preliminary tests were conducted thereon. Such tests were preliminary because it is not had the space with all controlled conditions to allow performing measurements according to the rigor of the procedures. It was possible to establish cooperation with the Research Center Housing and Construction to allow a joint development because of that they have common interests in metrology and quality control, Also a list of contacts in a number of actors was established important in the field of metrology at national level. Working with student assistants allowed researchers to acquire training experience and training in the area of ​​metrology and students the opportunity to acquire skills and abilities in the area of ​​work laboratory and implementation of calibration procedures.Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica. Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Extensión

Interactions between geomorphology and production chain of 2 high-quality coffee in Costa Rica

High-altitude coffee has an international reputation due to its high quality, especially in countries with a long production history like Costa Rica. Specific geographical characteristics determine the regions where high-altitude coffee can be cultivated. Over the last two decades, new production conditions have promoted the growth of smallholder coffee farms in the Upper Buenavista Catchment (UBC) in the South of Costa Rica. To understand this phenomenon's process, we ini-tially performed a detailed geomorphological mapping of the high-elevation production sites in the UBC. Then, we used remote sensing to determine the coffee land cover (2005, 2012, and 2018) to compare their landforms. Furthermore, we analyzed the production-processing-market chain that has promoted coffee plantations since 2005. Our results show that coffee farmers chose more unstable and erosive areas with short-term production prospects to cultivate premium-prices coffee. Moreover, farmers have changed their role in the coffee sector, evolving from small pro-ducers to entrepreneurs with specialized knowledge. These actions may reduce economic risks and improve the household incomes of smallholder coffee producers. However, limited research has been done along the tropics about the relationships between landforms, socioeconomic drivers, and high-altitude coffee yield. Therefore, our results are essential to present geomor-phology and applied geography as baselines in land use planning for agricultural landscapes.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Docencia::Ciencias Sociales::Facultad de Ciencias Sociales::Escuela de Geografí

Gobierno corporativo, profesionalización y plan de sucesión para la Empresa ATAI de Tibás Ltda.

Proyecto de Graduación (Maestría en Dirección de Empresas) Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica, Escuela de Administración de Empresas, 2017.The following project is developed in ATAI of Tibás Ltda. Family business, which is dedicated to sale technical articles for the areas of art, surveying, architecture and engineering (hence its name). Main purpose of paper is to propose governing structures, succession and retirement plans, using best practices for family businesses, to improve management efficiency and guarantee business continuity. Document is divide in five main chapters structured as follows: First chapter entitled Generalities covers company background, approach, research problem, justification, objectives, closing with scope and limitations. Second chapter is the Theoretical Framework which focus on explaining relevant theoretical elements in topics of: family business, roles, decision making, conflict management, perspectives, governance bodies, governance structures, leadership, succession, professionalization and research methodology. Chapter three is Methodological Framework which explains procedures and instruments used during development of the project. It details information gathering tools used internally within the company and how results were used to approach the proposals. Chapter four called Diagnosis focus on aspects within the company and family, specifically on aspects relevant to governance structures, retirement plans and succession, concluding with presentation of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and Threats (SWOT). Once diagnosis is made, Proposals are elaborated in chapter five, which outlines practices, governing bodies, succession, retirement plans and roles for the business family. Finally, document closes with conclusions and recommendations derived from diagnosis and proposals made respectively.Empresa ATAI de Tibás, Ltda

Additions to Dendrodacrys and outline of taxa with branched hyphidia in Dacrymycetes (Basidiomycota)

The genus Dendrodacrys is a monophyletic group that belongs to Dacrymycetes (Agaricomycotina, Basidiomycota) and accommodates species distinguished by strongly branched hyphidia in combination with 3-septate basidiospores. While the original circumscription mainly treated European taxa, here we shift the focus to tropical and sub-tropical material and uncover wider variation in morphology within Dendrodacrys. Still united by hyphidia shape and basidiospore septation, the genus is expanded with 10 taxa having pustulate, cerebriform, or stipitate basidiocarps of yellow to dark brown colours, cylindrical to ovoid basidiospores, and hyphal septa with or without clamps. Monophyly of the amended Dendrodacrys is confirmed with a phylogeny based on six markers (SSU, ITS, LSU, TEF1-α, RPB1, and RPB2). As a result, we describe two new species (De. laetum and De. rigoratum), transfer three existing species to Dendrodacrys (De. brasiliense, De. dendrocalami, and De. pezizoideum), and raise one variety to the species level (De. kennedyae ≡ Dacrymyces enatus var. macrosporus). In addition, we provide descriptions for the earlier combined De. paraphysatum and four new informal taxa. Lastly, we present illustrations, a character table, and an identification key that addresses all known dacrymycetes with branched hyphidia.Peer reviewe

Novel free-form optical surface design with spiral symmetry

Manufacturing technologies as injection molding or embossing specify their production limits for minimum radii of the vertices or draft angle for demolding, for instance. These restrictions may limit the system optical efficiency or affect the generation of undesired artifacts on the illumination pattern when dealing with optical design. A novel manufacturing concept is presented here, in which the optical surfaces are not obtained from the usual revolution symmetry with respect to a central axis (z axis), but they are calculated as free-form surfaces describing a spiral trajectory around z axis. The main advantage of this new concept lies in the manufacturing process: a molded piece can be easily separated from its mold just by applying a combination of rotational movement around axis z and linear movement along axis z, even for negative draft angles. The general designing procedure will be described in detai

First record of a Middle Ordovician ophiuroid (Asterozoa, Echinodermata) in the Guadarranque syncline (Villuercas-Ibores-La Jara UNESCO Global Geopark, Extremadura, Spain)

Los restos de asterozoos son sumamente escasos en el Ordovícico Medio y Superior del suroeste de Europa, si bien la auténtica diversidad de estos equinodermos está largamente enmascarada por su dificultad de fosilización. En este trabajo se presenta la segunda localidad centroibérica donde se registra el ofiuroideo Palaeura hispanica Smith, descubierto por primera vez en el sinclinal de Algodor- Milagro en los Montes de Toledo, y que ahora se identifica en el sinclinal del Guadarranque en las Villuercas. Se trata de un ejemplar completo conservado por su cara dorsal, que muestra la región central del disco erosionada dejando ver las placas orales. Uno de los brazos se halla torsionado, con su extremo ventral vuelto hacia arriba. La conformación de los brazos de P. neglecta Schuchert (Darriwiliense medio de Bohemia y el oeste de Inglaterra) presenta suficientes diferencias con P. hispanica (Darriwiliense medio de la Zona Centroibérica), como para considerar a ambos taxones como especies distintas, en lugar de subespecies geográficas. El ejemplar estudiado se expone en el Centro de Interpretación del Fósil de Navatrasierra, dependiente del Geoparque extremeño Villuercas-Ibores- JaraFossil asterozoans are extremely rare in the Middle and Upper Ordovician of southwestern Europe, especially because they disarticulate rapidly after death and have a lower potential of fossilization. This paper presents the second record of Palaeura hispanica Smith in the Central Iberian Zone. This ophiuroid was first discovered in the Algodor-Milagro syncline in the Toledo Mountains, and is now characterized in the Guadarranque syncline in Las Villuercas. The single described specimen is preserved by its dorsal face, with the eroded central region of the disc showing the oral plates. One of the arms is turned up, showing details of its ventral surface. Plates from the arms of P. neglecta Schuchert (Middle Darriwilian of Bohemia and western England) show differences with P. hispanica (Middle Darriwilian of the Central Iberian Zone), suggesting they are different species instead of geographical subspecies. The specimen studied is currently exhibited at the Interpretation Center of the Fossil of Navatrasierra, belonging to the Villuercas-Ibores-Jara UNESCO Global Geopark (Extremadura, west of Spain