ALBERT

Description: Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) mortality remains high. The best survival rates are achieved when trained people provide OHCA victims with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR); however, it is estimated that only 25% of victims receive CPR. This community health study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a training programme in basic CPR and in the use of an automatic external defibrillator (AED) on knowledge and skills for lay people, and its social impact. The training courses were based on Catalan Council of Resuscitation guidelines. Data were collected on sociodemographic characteristics, evaluation of knowledge and practical skills at baseline and at the end of the training courses, and also on the social impact of the programme. A total of 36 training courses with 482 participants were carried out, and most participants achieved a qualification of suitable. The mean score in knowledge was 3.1 ± 1.1 at baseline and 3.8 ± 1.2 (p = 0.001) at the end of the programme. Participants rated the training courses as very satisfactory, considered the training useful, and felt more qualified to respond to an emergency. This study shows that a high percentage of participants acquired skills in basic CPR and use of an AED, which confirms the usefulness and effectiveness of training courses and its important social impact.

Description: The present study explores the cloud microphysics (MPs) impact on the simulation of two convective rainfall events (CREs) over the complex topography of Andes mountains, using the Weather Research and Forecasting- Advanced Research (WRF-ARW) model. The events occurred on December 29 2015 (CRE1) and January 7 2016 (CRE2). Six microphysical parameterizations (MPPs) (Thompson, WSM6, Morrison, Goddard, Milbrandt and Lin) were tested, which had been previously applied in complex orography areas. The one-way nesting technique was applied to four domains, with horizontal resolutions of 18, 6, and 3 km for the outer ones, in which cumulus and MP parameterizations were applied, while for the innermost domain, with a resolution of 0.75 km, only MP parameterization was used. It was integrated for 36 h with National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP Final Operational Global Analysis (NFL) initial conditions at 00:00 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). The simulations were verified using Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) brightness temperature, Ka band cloud radar, and surface meteorology variables observed at the Huancayo Observatory. All the MPPs detected the surface temperature signature of the CREs, but for CRE2, it was underestimated during its lifetime in its vicinity, matching well after the simulated event. For CRE1, all the schemes gave good estimations of 24 h precipitation, but for CRE2, Goddard and Milbrandt underestimated the 24 h precipitation in the inner domain. The Morrison and Lin configurations reproduced the general dynamics of the development of cloud systems for the two case studies. The vertical profiles of the hydrometeors simulated by different schemes showed significant differences. The best performance of the Morrison scheme for both case studies may be related to its ability to simulate the role of graupel in precipitation formation. The analysis of the maximum reflectivity field, cloud top distribution, and vertical structure of the simulated cloud field also shows that the Morrison parameterization reproduced the convective systems consistently with observations.

Description: The use of small wind turbines (SWTs) is an alternative energy strategy with increasing potential for satisfying in situ electrical demands and should be studied to promote social penetration. The Valley of Mexico Metropolitan Area (VMMA) has air pollution issues that need to be addressed. This has resulted in programs for monitoring atmospheric variables, such as wind speed. By selecting and using 3 years’ worth of available data, we developed a methodology to study the technical and economic feasibility of using SWTs in the VMMA. To this end, 28 SWT models were assessed at 18 locations to estimate annual energy production. In light of certain data characteristics, an adjustment to the power production was proposed for the specific case of using SWTs. Cash flow analysis and annualized net present value (ANPV) were used to determine economic feasibility for each location; furthermore, electric home feeds in the VMMA were considered to model local economic conditions. Similar wind conditions were observed within the VMMA; however, only two wind turbine and location models provided positive ANPV values. The extra annual benefit for each project was calculated by associating the cost per mitigation of CO2 emissions, which may provide an economic strategy for promoting the penetration of this technology.

Description: The research on DC-DC power converters has been a matter of interest for years since this type of converter can be used in a wide range of applications. The main research is focused on increasing the converter voltage gain while obtaining a good efficiency and reliability. Among the different DC-DC converters, the flyback topology is well-known and widely used. In this paper, a novel high efficiency modified step-up DC-DC flyback converter is presented. The converter is based on a N-stages flyback converter with parallel connected inputs and series-connected outputs. The use of a single main diode and output capacitor reduces the number of passive elements and allows for a more economical implementation compared with interleaved flyback topologies. High efficiency is obtained by including an active snubber circuit, which returns the energy stored in the leakage inductance of the flyback transformers back to the input power supply. A 4.7 kW laboratory prototype is implemented considering four flyback stages with an input voltage of 96 V and an output voltage of 590 V, obtaining an efficiency of 95%. The converter operates in discontinuous current mode then facilitating the output voltage controller design. Experimental results are presented and discussed.

Description: We address a scheduling problem in an actual environment of the tortilla industry. Since the problem is NP hard, we focus on suboptimal scheduling solutions. We concentrate on a complex multistage, multiproduct, multimachine, and batch production environment considering completion time and energy consumption optimization criteria. The production of wheat-based and corn-based tortillas of different styles is considered. The proposed bi-objective algorithm is based on the known Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II). To tune it up, we apply statistical analysis of multifactorial variance. A branch and bound algorithm is used to assert obtained performance. We show that the proposed algorithms can be efficiently used in a real production environment. The mono-objective and bi-objective analyses provide a good compromise between saving energy and efficiency. To demonstrate the practical relevance of the results, we examine our solution on real data. We find that it can save 48% of production time and 47% of electricity consumption over the actual production.

Description: Ore mining has served as a predictor of economic wellbeing since it brought development to countries. However, these benefits do not always extend to all localities that comprised the center of this industry. This paper examined the contribution of mining to local communities. An index of local sustainability was constructed based on economic, social, and land-use data from twelve localities where mining and forestry are their major economic activities. Land-use variables were obtained from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM 5) images for 2000, and Landsat Operational Land Imager (OLI8) for 2014, while the socio-economic variables were collected in twelve localities with an 85-question survey. A sustainability index was developed for each group of variables—economic (ESI), social (SSI) and land-use sustainability index (LUSI)—to further build a local sustainability index (LSI). Three localities showed the highest ESI (0.61, 0.53 and 0.43) and SSI (0.90, 0.79 and 0.78), while two localities had the lowest values in the ESI and SSI. In contrast, the highest value of LUSI was found in two other different localities and in one with lower SSI. Income from mining activities is positively associated with the ESI and SSI, but there was no evidence of linear association with the LUSI. A local index of sustainability provides useful information for planning and development strategies.

Description: Wind speed turbulence intensity is a crucial parameter in designing the structure of wind turbines. The IEC61400 considers the Normal Turbulence Model (NTM) as a reference for fatigue load calculations for small and large wind turbines. La Ventosa is a relevant region for the development of the wind power sector in Mexico. However, in the literature, there are no studies on this important parameter in this zone. Therefore, we present an analysis of the turbulence intensity to improve the understanding of local winds and contribute to the development of reliable technical solutions. In this work, we experimentally estimate the turbulence intensity of the region and the wind shear exponent in terms of atmospheric stability to analyze the relation of these design parameters with the recommended standard for large and small wind turbines. The results showed that the atmosphere is strongly convective and stable in most of the eleven months studied. The turbulence intensity analysis showed that for a range of wind speeds between 2 and 24 m/s, some values of the variable measured were greater than those recommended by the standard, which corresponds to 388 hours of turbulence intensity being underestimated. This may lead to fatigue loads and cause structural damage to the technologies installed in the zone if they were not designed to operate in these wind speed conditions.

Description: In this work, we present a mobile health system for the automated detection of crackle sounds comprised by an acoustical sensor, a smartphone device, and a mobile application (app) implemented in Android. Although pulmonary auscultation with traditional stethoscopes had been used for decades, it has limitations for detecting discontinuous adventitious respiratory sounds (crackles) that commonly occur in respiratory diseases. The proposed app allows the physician to record, store, reproduce, and analyze respiratory sounds directly on the smartphone. Furthermore, the algorithm for crackle detection was based on a time-varying autoregressive modeling. The performance of the automated detector was analyzed using: (1) synthetic fine and coarse crackle sounds randomly inserted to the basal respiratory sounds acquired from healthy subjects with different signal to noise ratios, and (2) real bedside acquired respiratory sounds from patients with interstitial diffuse pneumonia. In simulated scenarios, for fine crackles, an accuracy ranging from 84.86% to 89.16%, a sensitivity ranging from 93.45% to 97.65%, and a specificity ranging from 99.82% to 99.84% were found. The detection of coarse crackles was found to be a more challenging task in the simulated scenarios. In the case of real data, the results show the feasibility of using the developed mobile health system in clinical no controlled environment to help the expert in evaluating the pulmonary state of a subject.

Description: Climate change is increasing risks to human health and to the health systems that seek to protect the safety and well-being of populations. Health authorities require information about current associations between health outcomes and weather or climate, vulnerable populations, projections of future risks and adaptation opportunities in order to reduce exposures, empower individuals to take needed protective actions and build climate-resilient health systems. An increasing number of health authorities from local to national levels seek this information by conducting climate change and health vulnerability and adaptation assessments. While assessments can provide valuable information to plan for climate change impacts, the results of many studies are not helping to build the global evidence-base of knowledge in this area. They are also often not integrated into adaptation decision making, sometimes because the health sector is not involved in climate change policy making processes at the national level. Significant barriers related to data accessibility, a limited number of climate and health models, uncertainty in climate projections, and a lack of funding and expertise, particularly in developing countries, challenge health authority efforts to conduct rigorous assessments and apply the findings. This paper examines the evolution of climate change and health vulnerability and adaptation assessments, including guidance developed for such projects, the number of assessments that have been conducted globally and implementation of the findings to support health adaptation action. Greater capacity building that facilitates assessments from local to national scales will support collaborative efforts to protect health from current climate hazards and future climate change. Health sector officials will benefit from additional resources and partnership opportunities to ensure that evidence about climate change impacts on health is effectively translated into needed actions to build health resilience.

Description: Resources, Vol. 6, Pages 42: Using Social, Economic and Land-Use Indices to Build a Local Sustainability Index in a Mining Region of the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico Resources doi: 10.3390/resources6030042 Authors: Carmelo Pinedo-Álvarez Karla Chacón-Chumacero Alfredo Pinedo-Álvarez Martín Martínez-Salvador Marusia Rentería-Villalobos Eduardo Santellano-Estrada Sandra Rodríguez-Piñeros Ore mining has served as a predictor of economic wellbeing since it brought development to countries. However, these benefits do not always extend to all localities that comprised the center of this industry. This paper examined the contribution of mining to local communities. An index of local sustainability was constructed based on economic, social, and land-use data from twelve localities where mining and forestry are their major economic activities. Land-use variables were obtained from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM 5) images for 2000, and Landsat Operational Land Imager (OLI8) for 2014, while the socio-economic variables were collected in twelve localities with an 85-question survey. A sustainability index was developed for each group of variables—economic (ESI), social (SSI) and land-use sustainability index (LUSI)—to further build a local sustainability index (LSI). Three localities showed the highest ESI (0.61, 0.53 and 0.43) and SSI (0.90, 0.79 and 0.78), while two localities had the lowest values in the ESI and SSI. In contrast, the highest value of LUSI was found in two other different localities and in one with lower SSI. Income from mining activities is positively associated with the ESI and SSI, but there was no evidence of linear association with the LUSI. A local index of sustainability provides useful information for planning and development strategies.