ALBERT

Description: Water, Vol. 9, Pages 602: Distributed Hydrological Modeling: Determination of Theoretical Hydraulic Potential & Streamflow Simulation of Extreme Hydrometeorological Events Water doi: 10.3390/w9080602 Authors: Sara Ibarra-Zavaleta Rosario Landgrave Rabindranarth Romero-López Annie Poulin Raúl Arango-Miranda The progressive change in climatic conditions worldwide has increased frequency and severity of extreme hydrometeorological events (EHEs). México is an example that has been affected by the occurrence of EHE leading to economic, social, and environmental losses. The objective of this research was to apply a Canadian distributed hydrological model (DHM) to tropical conditions and to evaluate its capacity to simulate flows in a basin in the central Gulf of Mexico. In addition, the DHM (once calibrated and validated) was used to calculate the theoretical hydraulic power (THP) and the performance to predict streamflow before the presence of an EHE. The results of the DHM show that the goodness of fit indicators between the observed and simulated flows in the calibration process Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) = 0.83, ratio of the root mean square error to the standard deviation of measured data (RSR) = 0.41, and percent bias (PBIAS) = −4.3) and validation (NSE = 0.775, RSR = 0.4735, and PBIAS = 2.45) are satisfactory. The DHM showed its applicability: determination of THP showed that the mean flows are in synchrony with the order of the river reaches and streamflow simulation of 13 EHEs (NSE = 0.78 ± 0.13, RSR = 0.46 ± 0.14 and PBIAS = −0.48 ± 7.5) confirmed a reliable efficiency. This work can serve as a tool for identifying vulnerabilities before floods and for the rational and sustainable management of water resources.

Description: Energies, Vol. 10, Pages 1604: Designing a Sustainable University Recharge Area for Electric Vehicles: Technical and Economic Analysis Energies doi: 10.3390/en10101604 Authors: Rosario Miceli Fabio Viola This article addresses the technical and economic challenges regarding the design of a “green” recharge area for electric vehicles at the University of Palermo in order to reduce costs and pollution connected to the charging process. Based on the behaviour of the student population, the electrical load is identified and two possible solutions are evaluated to manage the peak load: an orientation of the panels increasing the power at defined time and the use of a storage system. The main strength and weakness points of two systems are investigated by taking into account the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), which reaches 75.3 €/MWh for the orientation of panel and 103 €/MWh for the storage system. Furthermore, the cost of the topologies of power plant and the cost of energy are discussed in depth.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 14, Pages 1488: Social Networks, Engagement and Resilience in University Students International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph14121488 Authors: Elena Fernández-Martínez Elena Andina-Díaz Rosario Fernández-Peña Rosa García-López Iván Fulgueiras-Carril Cristina Liébana-Presa Analysis of social networks may be a useful tool for understanding the relationship between resilience and engagement, and this could be applied to educational methodologies, not only to improve academic performance, but also to create emotionally sustainable networks. This descriptive study was carried out on 134 university students. We collected the network structural variables, degree of resilience (CD-RISC 10), and engagement (UWES-S). The computer programs used were excel, UCINET for network analysis, and SPSS for statistical analysis. The analysis revealed results of means of 28.61 for resilience, 2.98 for absorption, 4.82 for dedication, and 3.13 for vigour. The students had two preferred places for sharing information: the classroom and WhatsApp. The greater the value for engagement, the greater the degree of centrality in the friendship network among students who are beginning their university studies. This relationship becomes reversed as the students move to later academic years. In terms of resilience, the highest values correspond to greater centrality in the friendship networks. The variables of engagement and resilience influenced the university students’ support networks.

Description: Sensors, Vol. 17, Pages 2566: An Embedded Wireless Sensor Network with Wireless Power Transmission Capability for the Structural Health Monitoring of Reinforced Concrete Structures Sensors doi: 10.3390/s17112566 Authors: Luca Gallucci Costantino Menna Leopoldo Angrisani Domenico Asprone Rosario Schiano Lo Moriello Francesco Bonavolontà Francesco Fabbrocino Maintenance strategies based on structural health monitoring can provide effective support in the optimization of scheduled repair of existing structures, thus enabling their lifetime to be extended. With specific regard to reinforced concrete (RC) structures, the state of the art seems to still be lacking an efficient and cost-effective technique capable of monitoring material properties continuously over the lifetime of a structure. Current solutions can typically only measure the required mechanical variables in an indirect, but economic, manner, or directly, but expensively. Moreover, most of the proposed solutions can only be implemented by means of manual activation, making the monitoring very inefficient and then poorly supported. This paper proposes a structural health monitoring system based on a wireless sensor network (WSN) that enables the automatic monitoring of a complete structure. The network includes wireless distributed sensors embedded in the structure itself, and follows the monitoring-based maintenance (MBM) approach, with its ABCDE paradigm, namely: accuracy, benefit, compactness, durability, and easiness of operations. The system is structured in a node level and has a network architecture that enables all the node data to converge in a central unit. Human control is completely unnecessary until the periodic evaluation of the collected data. Several tests are conducted in order to characterize the system from a metrological point of view and assess its performance and effectiveness in real RC conditions.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 14, Pages 1602: Environmental Factors Correlated with Culturable Enterococci Concentrations in Tropical Recreational Waters: A Case Study in Escambron Beach, San Juan, Puerto Rico International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph14121602 Authors: Abdiel Laureano-Rosario Erin Symonds Digna Rueda-Roa Daniel Otis Frank Muller-Karger Enterococci concentration variability at Escambron Beach, San Juan, Puerto Rico, was examined in the context of environmental conditions observed during 2005–2015. Satellite-derived sea surface temperature (SST), turbidity, direct normal irradiance, and dew point were combined with local precipitation, winds, and mean sea level (MSL) observations in a stepwise multiple regression analyses (Akaike Information Criteria model selection). Precipitation, MSL, irradiance, SST, and turbidity explained 20% of the variation in observed enterococci concentrations based upon these analyses. Changes in these parameters preceded increases in enterococci concentrations by 24 h up to 11 days, particularly during positive anomalies of turbidity, SST, and 480–960 mm of accumulated (4 days) precipitation, which relates to bacterial ecology. Weaker, yet still significant, increases in enterococci concentrations were also observed during positive dew point anomalies. Enterococci concentrations decreased with elevated irradiance and MSL anomalies. Unsafe enterococci concentrations per US EPA recreational water quality guidelines occurred when 4-day cumulative precipitation ranged 481–960 mm; irradiance < 667 W·m−2; daily average turbidity anomaly >0.005 sr−1; SST anomaly >0.8 °C; and 3-day average MSL anomaly <−18.8 cm. This case study shows that satellite-derived environmental data can be used to inform future water quality studies and protect human health.

Description: The economic transformation produced by tourism sometimes has a positive influence on reducing poverty, but other times it does not. Discovering the reasons for this difference is highly relevant. In searching for these reasons, this study will focus on an important actor in tourism management, the manager. Specifically, the study will analyze how a certain negative mood state, anomia, influences the fact that managers do not consider it advisable for their companies to become involved in reducing poverty. The term future managers has been used as a proxy variable for managers. In addition, the study will also examine whether a moral disengagement mechanism, displacement of responsibility, is a mediator variable in this relationship. Covariance-based structural equation modeling was applied to a sample of 422 students in their last year of the Tourism degree at two universities, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) and Ibn-Zohr-Agadir (Morocco). The results show that all the proposed hypotheses are supported.

Description: The use of oxygenated fuels in spark ignition engines (SIEs) has gained increasing attention in the last few years, especially when coming from renewable sources, due to the shortage of fossil fuels and global warming concern. Currently, the main substitute of gasoline is ethanol, which helps to reduce CO and HC emissions but presents a series of drawbacks such as a low heating value and a high hygroscopic tendency, which cause higher fuel consumption and corrosion problems, respectively. This paper shows the most relevant properties when replacing ethanol by renewable n-butanol, which presents a higher heating value and a lower hygroscopic tendency compared to the former. The test matrix carried out for this experimental study includes, on the one hand, ethanol substitution by n-butanol in commercial blends and, on the other hand, either ethanol or gasoline substitution by n-butanol in E85 blends (85% ethanol-15% gasoline by volume). The results show that the substitution of n-butanol by ethanol presents a series of benefits such as a higher heating value and a greater interchangeability with gasoline compared to ethanol, which makes n-butanol a promising fuel for SIEs in commercial blends. However, the use of n-butanol in E85 blends substituting either gasoline or ethanol may cause cold-start problems due to the lower vapor pressure of n-butanol. For this reason, a combined substitution of n-butanol by both gasoline and ethanol is proposed so that n-butanol can be used without start problems.

Description: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is an aggressive human malignancy with a complex genomic landscape harboring KRAS mutations. In 40%–60% of patients with CRC, constantly active KRAS proteins affect the prognosis, surgical strategy, and clinical benefit from therapy with anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) agents. For this reason, there is a greater demand for minimally-invasive diagnostic devices to characterize the genetic pattern and prevent the acquired mechanism to drug resistance. The rapid developments in cutting-edge diagnostic techniques are expected to play a growing role in medicine and represent an attractive promise to identify potential responders to personalized medicine. Here we propose a new method to simultaneously detect the main KRAS mutations on the portable real-time PCR Q3 platform. This platform is based on hybrid silicon-plastic technology implemented in a miniaturized chip able to achieve a sample-in answer-out rapid analysis, allowing a new approach to genetic counseling and testing.