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The pandemic caused by Covid-19 has forced governments to implement restrictions on mobility and social interaction and, in some cases, even confine populations to their homes, affecting their dail...

The SARS-CoV-2 virus changed social reality worldwide, affecting people’s health and work life, particularly their anxiety levels. The purpose of this study is to verify the situation of women in terms of anxiety and social determinants in Spain during the pandemic. The sample consisted of 4686 people (3500 women and 1186 men). The tools used were the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and an ad hoc questionnaire to assess the work and mental situation of the participants. The results indicate a higher rate of anxiety among women than among men and reveal a relationship between higher levels of anxiety and more vulnerable work situations in terms of higher unemployment rates, contract changes, etc. Furthermore, there was a higher percentage of women than men in the sectors where the health crisis has had a greater impact and presence, with repercussions on the physical, mental, and social health of the entire population and especially on women. It is necessary to take into account the social determinants of health, not only at the structural level, in terms of the socio-economic and political contexts, to avoid and limit the axes of inequality such as gender.

Spain has been pinpointed as one of the European countries at major risk of extreme urban events. Thus, Spanish cities pursue new urban plans to increase their resilience. In this scenario, experiences in the implementation of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) have increased substantially. Nevertheless, few cities have developed a global urban strategy for SUDS, lacking, in many cases, a method to identify strategic areas to maximize their synergetic benefits. Furthermore, there is still a need for a holistic Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) framework that considers the four pillars of SUDS design. The city of Gijón, NW Spain, has been selected as a case study due to its environmental and climatic stresses. This research presents the methodology developed for this city, which aims to analyze the need for SUDS implementation throughout the identification of strategic areas. With this aim, a combination of Geographic Information System (GIS) software and the MCDA Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) were proposed. The results show the potential for SUDS’ implementation, according to nine criteria related to the SUDS’ design pillars. We found that the areas where the implementation of SUDS would bring the greatest functional, environmental and social benefits are mainly located in consolidated urban areas., This work was partially supported by the Council of Gijón through the University Institute of Industrial Technology of Asturias (Ref. IUTA-20-GIJON-01). The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the IUTA. This investigation was also funded the Gijón Water Company (Empresa Municipal de Aguas S.A.) through the project with reference number FUO-21-226.

Glenohumeral joint is the main joint responsible for the mobility of the shoulder. Surgical interventions to replace the glenohumeral joint are increasing significantly, both to treat diseases such as arthritis and to solve fracture problems.

Psychological variables, such as perceived motivational climate, goal orientation, self-determined motivation, and personality, have an influence on sports success performance. This study aimed to examine the relationships among a set of psychological variables (perceived motivational climate, goal orientation, self-determined motivation, and personality) in male and female footballers. Participants were 167 footballers (106 male, 61 female), aged 12 to 26, competing with clubs in the Spanish Football League. They all took four questionnaires aimed at evaluating motivational climate, goal orientations, self-determined motivation, and personality. The analyses of correlation and regression showed statistically significant relations among the variables. Neuroticism and psychoticism negatively relate to mastery motivational climate, the best predictor of self-determined motivation. It was concluded that contextual variables carry more weight in predicting goal orientations and self-determined motivation among participant footballers.

The global challenge of reducing pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions has forced the development of alternatives to traditional internal combustion engine vehicles, such as electric or hybrid vehicles. Electric engines are the most efficient for delivery trucks or city buses. Their acceleration and deceleration patterns make them inefficient for the use of internal combustion engines. However, their range and purchase cost are the main factors limiting their use in these applications. The range and acquisition cost of an electric vehicle are mainly related to the energy storage system. Therefore, the optimal size of the battery pack should be considered as a design objective when its application is known. This paper presents a methodology to optimize the battery pack of an electric vehicle based on a given travel distance in a target time. Therefore, it would be applicable to delivery vehicles, buses and any vehicle whose route and travel time are known in advance. The proposed methodology allows minimizing energy consumption by determining the optimal gear ratio for a given route, setting the travel time as a target. A complete vehicle model and a multi-objective genetic algorithm are used for this purpose.

Vegetated swales are a popular sustainable drainage system (SuDS) used in a wide range of environments from urban areas and transport infrastructure, to rural environments, sub-urban and natural catchments. Despite the fact that vegetated swales, also known as grassed swales, have received scientific attention over recent years, especially from a hydrological perspective, there is a need for further research in the field, with long-term monitoring. In addition, vegetated swales introduce further difficulties, such as the biological growth occurring in their surface layer, as well as the biological evolution taking place in them. New developments, such as the implementation of thermal devices within the cross-section of green SuDS for energy saving purposes, require a better understanding of the long-term performance of the surface temperature of swales. This research aims to contribute to a better understanding of these knowledge gaps through a descriptive analysis of a vegetated swale in Ryton, Coventry, UK, under a Cfb K&ouml, ppen climatic classification and a mixed rural and peri-urban scenario. Precipitation and temperature patterns associated with seasonality effects were identified. Furthermore, a level of biological evolution was described due to the lack of periodical and planned maintenance activities, reporting the presence of both plant species and pollinators. Only one event of flooding was identified during the three hydrological years monitored in this research study, showing a robust performance.

In last years, biomechanical investigations have led to a better understanding of the biomechanics of the glenohumeral joint, and this development, has allowed the development of a new prosthesis design named reverse shoulder prosthesis in which the hemisphere is placed in the glenoid cavity, favoring the function of the deltoid and helping in this way to reduce some post-surgery complications in patients with damage in their rotor cuff, fractures or degenerative problems. When this implant is placed to replace the shoulder joint, a loss in bone density can occur due to changes in the internal tensions generated by the bone-prosthesis system. In this context, a new methodology had been created to be able to generate a digital twin from computed tomography (CT) scan to use in a CAD-FEM environment with the mechanical properties of the bones and where a virtual surgery can be made and then simulate the performance of the implant. These models allow the simulation of different scenarios after the virtual surgery is performed. A case study of a patient with four fragment fracture of the humeral head has been developed with the new methodology. The results suggest that in certain fragments, the internal stresses vary in a significative way according with the force applied on the sutures. Keywords: 3D biomechanical models, Finite Element Simulation, Reverse shoulder prosthesis, Biomechanics, Digital Twin

During the final design review of Diagnostic Port Plugs, it has been highlighted that the current system of fixation, based on gaps, while it is not harmful for the port plug, it throws large uncertainties over the alignment of the optical systems placed inside the DSMs at the same time that the real mechanical behavior of the assembly is clearly unknown. Because the DSM is not rigidly fixed to the Port Plug structure, the DSM and its internal components suffer, during abnormal events like seismic or electromagnetic disruptions, an important level of amplification on the accelerations induced. This magnification is largely derived from a rattling effect that the DSM is vibrating inside the port plug. This effect produces an increase of the efforts acting on the anchoring components of the port plug at the same time that the final position of the DSM after an abnormal event is unknown and greatly influenced by the manufacturing and assembly tolerances. In order to solve all these issues, a new locking system has been developed based on a rigid configuration. Non-relevant modifications are required in the Port Plug structure or in the DSMs for the implementation of this new system because the interfaces are kept intact. Results based on this new configuration are available and they present an important attenuation of the induced accelerations on components inside the DSMs. In addition, the system permits the individual adjustment of each one of the interfacing component to finally achieve the correct aligned positions. Therefore, this new locking system has been assumed for all IO Diagnostic Port Plugs.

An iterative algorithm is proposed for determining the optimal chassis design of an electric vehicle, given a path and a reference time. The proposed algorithm balances the capacity of the battery pack and the dynamic properties of the chassis, seeking to optimize the tradeoff between the mass of the vehicle, its energy consumption, and the travel time. The design variables of the chassis include geometrical and inertial values, as well as the characteristics of the powertrain. The optimization is constrained by the slopes, curves, grip, and posted speeds of the different sections of the track. Particular service constraints are also considered, such as limiting accelerations due to passenger comfort or cargo safety. This methodology is applicable to any vehicle whose route and travel time are known in advance, such as delivery vehicles, buses, and race cars, and has been validated using telemetry data from an internal combustion rear-wheel drive race car designed for hill climb competitions. The implementation of the proposed methodology allows to reduce the weight of the battery pack by up to 20%, compared to traditional design methods.

There are many biomechanical researches to assess or predict the behaviour of a bone when certain efforts are applied or when a prosthetic element is implanted. The present study proposes a new tool with a low computational cost. This tool accelerates the virtual assess of the biomechanical behaviour of a bone after adding an implant. This paper presents a case of a femurafter a THR surgery. To start with, we use a specific software, which generate voxel models of bones and prosthesis in AutoCAD®.Based on these models, we can obtain two other FEM models to calculate the internal bone stress and make a comparison between the stress before and after the surgery. To improve the assessment of stress changes, we create a new voxel model representing the decreases and increases in each node considered. This methodology allows specialists and designers to quickly verify future damage in bone remodelling after implantation of the prosthesis.

This paper demonstrates structural integrity of the first confinement boundary in Generic Upper Port Plug structures against cracking during service. This constitutes part of the justification to demonstrate that the non-aggression to the confinement barrier requirement may be compatible with the absent of a specific in-service inspections (ISI) program in the trapezoidal section. Since the component will be subjected to 100% volumetric inspections it can be assumed that no defects below the threshold of applied Nondestructive Evaluation techniques will be present before its commissioning. Cracks during service would be associated to defects under Code acceptance limit. This limit can be reasonably taken as 2 mm. Using elastic–plastic fracture mechanics an initial defect is postulated at the worst location in terms of probability and impact on the confinement boundary. Its evolution is simulated through finite element analysis and final dimension at the end of service is estimated. Applying the procedures in RCC-MR 2007 (App-16) the stability of the crack is assessed. As relative high safety margin was achieved, a complementary assessment postulating an initial defect of 6 mm was also conducted. New margin calculated provides a more robust design.

The purpose of this paper is present an overview of the methodology followed to calculate the dynamic amplification factors applied to the electromagnetic loads acting in the ITER generic port plugs. The methodology used for combining an EM transient event with another kind of load is based in the treated of this dynamic EM event as a static load. As first stage a transient dynamic analysis was performed, at the most demanded electromagnetic event [2] , to determine the dynamic response of the port plugs. In the same way, have been solved all the time steps of the dynamic event as static loads, it means that the inertial effect has been neglected. The response of each time-step at the dynamic solution has been compared with the same time-step solved as a static load. For this purpose some control points were positioned along the structure at the most representative locations. The key of these calculations is the understanding of the deformed modes affecting the port plug in order to obtain a reasonable dynamic amplification factors that permit the characterization of these loads in a realistic way and does not derive in a too conservative approach. Additionally, the fundamental frequencies and vibration modes of the generic port plug, requested for the characterization of the damping effects at the structure, were calculated in a complementary modal analysis performed for this aim.

The authors wish to acknowledge the CAWR, Coventry University, for the administrative support; and the GITECO Research Group, University of Cantabria, for housing the laboratory experiments., Land-use change due to rapid urbanization poses a threat to urban environments, which are in need of multifunctional green solutions to face complex future socio-ecological and climate scenarios. Urban regeneration strategies, bringing green infrastructure, are currently using sustainable urban drainage systems to exploit the provision of ecosystem services and their wider benefits. The link between food, energy and water depicts a technological knowledge gap, represented by previous attempts to investigate the combination between ground source heat pump and permeable pavement systems. This research aims to transfer these concepts into greener sustainable urban drainage systems like wet swales. A 1:2 scaled laboratory models were built and analysed under a range of ground source heat pump temperatures (20–50 ºC). Behavioral models of vertical and inlet/outlet temperature difference within the system were developed, achieving high R2, representing the first attempt to describe the thermal performance of wet swales in literature when designed alongside ground source heat pump elements. Statistical analyses showed the impact of ambient temperature and the heating source at different scales in all layers, as well as, the resilience to heating processes, recovering their initial thermal state within 16 h after the heating stage., This research was funded by the following Institutions: Coventry University through the project “Investigation of green infrastructure as a combined technique for Bioretention, Flood Resilience and Renewable Energy”; the Gijon City Council and the IUTA through the projects SV-18-GIJON-1-23; the FICYT through the GRUPIN project Ref. IDI/2018/000221, co-financed with EU FEDER funds; and the University of Oviedo through the project PAPI-17-PEMERG-22.

Classrooms equipped with a large number of personal computers are common when teaching many technical careers. A common issue for the teachers in these workshops is a fair management of student queries. Students usually ask for help by raising their hands to attract the teacher’s attention. The teacher then decides which student should be attended, therefore, in case of numerous requests, many students are not properly helped. Nowadays, query management can be automated, therefore the use of an arbitrary system seems to be out-of-date. One university classroom uses a new ICT tool, CRONOS, developed by the authors of this article. This experimental computer software runs in the classroom orkstations and in the server computer, its display being visible for all the students. The system does not require any speci? c hardware. CRONOS manages the queries queue as the students request help and displays the number of the workstation that is to be attended next. The students use their keyboards to ask for help, or to have their finished exercises corrected. This new teaching tool is seen by the students as very positive and motivational.After the implementation of the system, CRONOS sessions have been compared with the traditional ones. This comparison has shown that CRONOS is a useful tool in order to study the development of teaching methods and to improve it, because it allows to measure the ffectiveness of the student work and to optimize waiting times and care, among other parameters.