Rammed earth walls in Serón de Nágima castle (Soria, Spain): Constructive lecture

The Raya or frontier between the kingdoms of Castile and Aragón was fortified with a system of castles and walled-cities that were useful during the several conflicts that took place in the Late Medieval Age. The Serón de Nágima castle defended the communication road between the axis of the Jalón river valley, which flows into the Ebro, and Duero valley. Its uniqueness stems from the fact that it is one of the few fortifications in the area where rammed earth is the only building system used. In this paper, the castle building fundaments are exposed mainly focusing on the techniques and building processes developed from the interpretation of the legible constructive signs in its walls.

Domain-Specific Multi-Modeling of Security Concerns in Service-Oriented Architectures

As a common reference for many in-development standards and execution frameworks, special attention is being paid to Service-Oriented Architectures. SOAs modeling, however, is an area in which a consensus has not being achieved. Currently, standardization organizations are defining proposals to offer a solution to this problem. Nevertheless, until very recently, non-functional aspects of services have not been considered for standardization processes. In particular, there exists a lack of a design solution that permits an independent development of the functional and non-functional concerns of SOAs, allowing that each concern be addressed in a convenient manner in early stages of the development, in a way that could guarantee the quality of this type of systems. This paper, leveraging on previous work, presents an approach to integrate security-related non-functional aspects (such as confidentiality, integrity, and access control) in the development of services.

Multi Domain-Specific Modeling of the Security Concerns of Service-Oriented Architectures

Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA), and Web Services (WS), the technology generally used to implement them, achieve the integration of heterogeneous technologies, providing interoperability, and yielding the reutilization of pre-existent systems. Model-driven development methodologies provide inherent benefits such as increased productivity, greater reuse, and better maintainability, to name a few. Efforts on achieving model-driven development of SOAs already exist, but there is currently no standard solution that addresses non-functional aspects of these services as well. This paper presents an approach to integrate these non-functional aspects in the development of web services, with an emphasis on security.

Determination of suitable irrigation lengths and intervals using capacitance humidity sensors for a sandy soil

production, during the summer of 2010. This farm is integrated at the Spanish research network for the sugar beet development (AIMCRA) which regarding irrigation, focuses on maximizing water saving and cost reduction. According to AIMCRA 0 s perspective for promoting irrigation best practices, it is essential to understand soil response to irrigation i.e. maximum irrigation length for each soil infiltration capacity. The Use of Humidity Sensors provides foundations to address soil 0 s behavior at the irrigation events and, therefore, to establish the boundaries regarding irrigation length and irrigation interval. In order to understand to what extent farmer 0 s performance at Tordesillas farm could have been potentially improved, this study aims to address suitable irrigation length and intervals for the given soil properties and evapotranspiration rates. In this sense, several humidity sensors were installed: (1) A Frequency Domain Reflectometry (FDR) EnviroScan Probe taking readings at 10, 20, 40 and 60cm depth and (2) different Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) Echo 2 and Cr200 probes buried in a 50cm x 30cm x 50cm pit and placed along the walls at 10, 20, 30 and 40 cm depth. Moreover, in order to define soil properties, a textural analysis at the Tordesillas Farm was conducted. Also, data from the Tordesillas meteorological station was utilized.

Models for Internal Quality Fruit Sorting, Based on Time- Domain Laser Reflectance Spectroscopy (TDRS)

Time domain laser reflectance spectroscopy (TDRS) was applied for the first time to evaluate internal fruit quality. This technique, known in medicine-related knowledge areas, has not been used before in agricultural or food research. It allows the simultaneous non-destructive measuring of two optical characteristics of the tissues: light scattering and absorption. Models to measure firmness, sugar & acid contents in kiwifruit, tomato, apple, peach, nectarine and other fruits were built using sequential statistical techniques: principal component analysis, multiple stepwise linear regression, clustering and discriminant analysis. Consistent correlations were established between the two parameters measured with TDRS, i.e. absorption & transport scattering coefficients, with chemical constituents (sugars and acids) and firmness, respectively. Classification models were built to sort fruits into three quality grades, according to their firmness, soluble solids and acidity.

Modulation instability-induced fading in phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry

Phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (?OTDR) is a simple and effective tool allowing the distributed monitoring of vibrations along single-mode fibers. We show in this Letter that modulation instability (MI) can induce a position-dependent signal fading in long-range ?OTDR over conventional optical fibers. This fading leads to a complete masking of the interference signal recorded at certain positions and therefore to a sensitivity loss at these positions. We illustrate this effect both theoretically and experimentally. While this effect is detrimental in the context of distributed vibration analysis using ?OTDR, we also believe that the technique provides a clear and insightful way to evidence the Fermi?Pasta?Ulam recurrence associated with the MI process.

Softening-up mannan-rich cell walls

The softening and degradation of the cell wall (CW), often mannan enriched, is involved in several processes during development of higher plants, such as meristematic growth, fruit ripening, programmed cell death, and endosperm rupture upon germination. Mannans are also the predominant hemicellulosic CW polymers in many genera of green algae. The endosperm CWs of dry seeds often contain mannan polymers, sometimes in the form of galactomannans (Gal-mannans). The endo-beta-mannanases (MANs) that catalyse the random hydrolysis of the beta-linkage in the mannan backbone are one of the main hydrolytic enzymes involved in the loosening and remodelling of CWs. In germinating seeds, the softening of the endosperm seed CWs facilitates the emergence of the elongating radicle. Hydrolysis and mobilization of endosperm Gal-mannans by MANs also provides a source of nutrients for early seedling growth, since Gal-mannan, besides its structural role, serves as a storage polysaccharide. Therefore, the role of mannans and of their hydrolytic enzymes is decisive in the life cycle of seeds. This review updates and discusses the significance of mannans and MANs in seeds and explores the increasing biotechnological potential of MAN enzymes.

Periodic time-domain modulation for the electrically tunable control of optical pulse train envelope and repetition rate multiplication

An electrically tunable system for the control of optical pulse sequences is proposed and demonstrated. It is based on the use of an electrooptic modulator for periodic phase modulation followed by a dispersive device to obtain the temporal Talbot effect. The proposed configuration allows for repetition rate multiplication with different multiplication factors and with the simultaneous control of the pulse train envelope by simply changing the electrical signal driving the modulator. Simulated and experimental results for an input optical pulse train of 10 GHz are shown for different multiplication factors and envelope shapes.

Failure mechanism of reinforced concrete structural walls with and without confinement

This paper presents the results of cyclic loading tests on two large-scale reinforced concrete structural walls that were conducted at Purdue University. One of the walls had confinement reinforcement meeting ACI-318-11 requirements while the other wall did not have any confinement reinforcement. The walls were tested as part of a larger study aimed at indentifying parameters affecting failure modes observed to limit the drift capacity of structural walls in Chile during the Maule Earthquake of 2010. These failure modes include out-of-plane buckling (of the wall rather tan individual reinforcing bars), compression failure, and bond failure. This paper discusses the effects of confinement on failure mode. Distributions of unit strain and curvature obtained with a dense array of non-contact coordinate-tracking targets are also presented.

A platform for the development of patient applications in the domain of personalized health

Personalized health (p-health) systems can contribute significantly to the sustainability of healthcare systems, though their feasibility is yet to be proven. One of the problems related to their development is the lack of well-established development tools for this domain. As the p-health paradigm is focused on patient self-management, big challenges arise around the design and implementation of patient systems. This paper presents a reference platform created for the development of these applications, and shows the advantages of its adoption in a complex project dealing with cardio-vascular diseases.

Spatial domain mitigation of out of band strong interferers in HF wide band acquisition using analog beamforming principles

We envision that dynamic multiband transmissions taking advantage of the receiver diversity (even for collocated antennas with different polarization or radiation pattern) will create a new paradigm for these links guaranteeing high quality and reliability. However, there are many challenges to face regarding the use of broadband reception where several out of band (with respect to multiband transmission) strong interferers, but still within the acquisition band, may limit dramatically the expected performance. In this paper we address this problem introducing a specific capability of the communication system that is able to mitigate these interferences using analog beamforming principles. Indeed, Higher Order Crossing (HOCs) joint statistics of the Single Input ? Multiple Output (SIMO) system are shown to effectively determine the angle on arrival of the wavefront even operating over highly distorted signals.