Design of a new energy dissipating device and verification for use in rockfall protection barriers

Flexible barriers are structures used to protect specific areas from falling rocks. In most cases, barriers have energy dissipating devices (or brakes), that help to increase their energy-dissipation capacity by deformation, friction or the two mechanisms together. One drawback that has been detected in existing brakes is that they usually display irregular behaviour so that their real performance can present unexpected results in terms of activation force or total energy absorbed. This paper presents the complete design procedure of a new brake, which is proposed as a potential alternative to solve these uncertainties. The main energy dissipation mechanism is by plastic deformation of its components. The design procedure combines experimental tests and numerical modelling to take advantage of the benefits of both techniques. The final geometry is selected considering its efficiency, which involves not only total absorbed energy, but also energy absorbed per unit of mass

Waste-derived volatile fatty acids as carbon source for added-value fermentation approaches

The establishment of a sustainable circular bioeconomy requires the effective material recycling from biomass and biowaste beyond composting/fertilizer or anaerobic digestion/bioenergy. Recently, volatile fatty acids attracted much attention due to their potential application as carbon source for the microbial production of high added-value products. Their low-cost production from different types of wastes through dark fermentation is a key aspect, which will potentially lead to the sustainable production of fuels, materials or chemicals, while diminishing the waste volume. This article reviews the utilization of a volatile fatty acid platform for the microbial production of polyhydroxyalkanoates, single cell oil and omega-3 fatty acids, giving emphasis on the fermentation challenges for the efficient implementation of the bioprocess and how they were addressed. These challenges were addressed through a research project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme entitled 'VOLATILE-Biowaste derived volatile fatty acid platform for biopolymers, bioactive compounds and chemical building blocks'.This work was supported by the European project 'Volatile-Biowaste-derived volatile fatty acid platform for biopolymers, bioactive compounds and chemical building blocks' and has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 720777

Waste-derived volatile fatty acids as carbon source for added-value fermentation approaches

The establishment of a sustainable circular bioeconomy requires the effective material recycling from biomass and biowaste beyond composting/fertilizer or anaerobic digestion/bioenergy. Recently, volatile fatty acids attracted much attention due to their potential application as carbon source for the microbial production of high added-value products. Their low-cost production from different types of wastes through dark fermentation is a key aspect, which will potentially lead to the sustainable production of fuels, materials or chemicals, while diminishing the waste volume. This article reviews the utilization of a volatile fatty acid platform for the microbial production of polyhydroxyalkanoates, single cell oil and omega-3 fatty acids, giving emphasis on the fermentation challenges for the efficient implementation of the bioprocess and how they were addressed. These challenges were addressed through a research project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme entitled ‘VOLATILE—Biowaste derived volatile fatty acid platform for biopolymers, bioactive compounds and chemical building blocks’.This work was supported by the European project ‘VolatileBiowaste-derived volatile fatty acid platform for biopolymers, bioactive compounds and chemical building blocks’ and has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 720777

Human iPSC derived disease model of MERTK-associated retinitis pigmentosa

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) represents a genetically heterogeneous group of retinal dystrophies affecting mainly the rod photoreceptors and in some instances also the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells of the retina. Clinical symptoms and disease progression leading to moderate to severe loss of vision are well established and despite significant progress in the identification of causative genes, the disease pathology remains unclear. Lack of this understanding has so far hindered development of effective therapies. Here we report successful generation of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) from skin fibroblasts of a patient harboring a novel Ser331Cysfs*5 mutation in the MERTK gene. The patient was diagnosed with an early onset and severe form of autosomal recessive RP (arRP). Upon differentiation of these iPSC towards RPE, patient-specific RPE cells exhibited defective phagocytosis, a characteristic phenotype of MERTK deficiency observed in human patients and animal models. Thus we have created a faithful cellular model of arRP incorporating the human genetic background which will allow us to investigate in detail the disease mechanism, explore screening of a variety of therapeutic compounds/reagents and design either combined cell and gene- based therapies or independent approaches.This work was supported by Andalusian Health Council (PI-0324-2013), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI13/01331), Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness-FEDER BFU2012-36845, Instituto de Salud Carlos III RETICS RD12/0034/0010 and Academy of Finland (218050; 272808)

Evaluation of Depression, Anxiety and Sleep Quality in the Brazilian Population During Social Isolation Due to the New Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic: the DEGAS-CoV Study/ Avaliação da Depressão, Ansiedade e Qualidade do Sono na População Brasileira Durante o Isolamento Social Devido à Nova Pandemia do Coronavírus (SARS-CoV-2): o Estudo DEGAS-CoV

Introduction: The new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) has caused distress and repercussions in mental and physical health of individuals. Depression, anxiety and worsening of sleep quality have been reported in several recent articles that surveyed populations all over the globe. Our work meant to access, through a cross-sectional study, these disorders in the Brazilian population, through the application of an online questionnaire conducted on the second trimester of 2020. Materials and Methods: We applied an online questionnaire, filled with questions regarding social, economic, financial, educational and health status, as well as questions from the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD), and from the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).Results: We collected 2,695 valid answers, from April 24th to May 31st, 2020. Age ranged from 18 to 79 years, mean of 31.3. Women were 76.3%, men 23.7%. Symptoms of Anxiety were found in 56.5%, of depression in 46.1%, and of bad sleep in 49.2%. Some groups were more prone than others to one or more of those conditions, such as: younger people, women, mestizos, people with lesser years of education, of lower income or whose income dropped significantly during the pandemic, caregivers, students, sedentary or people practicing less physical activity, people who followed more hours of news of COVID-19 and those less engaged in social and instrumental activities.Conclusion: anxiety, depression and bad sleep quality were significantly high in our survey. Mental and sleep health is heterogeneously affected among individuals, depending on social, economic, financial, educational and health status

Puesta en marcha del curso on line “Envejecimiento y enfermedades neurodegenerativas” en la plataforma Miriadax

Este informe detalla los objetivos, actividades y métodos llevados a cabo durante la ejecución de un proyecto de innovación docente que tiene como objetivo implementar un curso online en abierto sobre las enfermedades neurodegenerativas y el envejecimiento

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Caracterización multianalítica de meteorito marciano NWA2975 mediante CF-LIBS, fluorescencia de rayos X y espectroscopía Raman

La caracterización isotópica y elemental de los meteoritos de Marte ha permitido determinar la cronología de los procesos de formación del planeta y avanzar en la comprensión de su evolución biogeoquímica e hidrológica. Los meteoritos más abundantes son las rocas de origen ígneo, como las shergottitas. Los estudios petrológicos y geoquímicos previos del meteorito Northwest Africa 2975 (NWA 2975), revelaron que se trata de una roca volcánica de grano medio, entre subofítica y granular, compuesta predominantemente por piroxenos (57,3 vol.%) y plagioclasa (38,3 vol. %) completamente enmascarados con fases opacas (2,7 vol.%) y fosfatos (1,7 vol.%) [1]. El instrumento SuperCam a bordo del rover Perseverance (misión MARS 2020 de la NASA) está equipado con técnicas atómicas y moleculares (incluyendo LIBS y Raman) para la detección y análisis a distancia de muestras geológicas en la superficie del Planeta Rojo. La capacidad de estas técnicas se ha demostrado ampliamente en la caracterización de rocas, minerales y suelos en varias misiones espaciales. En el presente trabajo, se analizó un fragmento del meteorito NWA 2975 mediante un sistema de micro-LIBS con el objetivo de revelar su composición química elemental. Debido a la heterogeneidad intrínseca de la muestra, se analizaron diferentes posiciones de su superficie. El análisis cuantitativo de los elementos principales (Si, Al, Fe, Mg, Mn, Ca y O) y de otros elementos menores se llevó a cabo utilizando la metodología Calibration-Free [2]. Los resultados sugieren la presencia de piroxenos como principal componente mineral en las posiciones inspeccionadas, aunque también se pueden encontrar otras fases minerales como la plagioclasa. La información extraída del análisis LIBS se ha comparado con la de fluorescencia de rayos X (XRF) y la espectroscopia Raman. El uso combinado de diferentes técnicas espectroscópicas ha permitido obtener una mejor interpretación de los resultados composicionales.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech