[en] In this paper the effect on the exergy of the Earth's fossil fuels if natural environmental conditions are changed due to the greenhouse effect is studied. The change considered here is a temperature rise produced as a result of increased CO₂ concentration. The temperature change due to the increase in CO₂ concentration is modeled in accordance with the most recent studies on the greenhouse effect. The result is that the ''average fossil fuel'', based on estimates of proven reserves, will lose 0.3% of its exergy if the atmospheric concentration of CO₂ doubles. Assuming that CO₂ concentration will double over the next hundred years, this 0.3% exergy loss of proven reserves means that we will lose as much capacity to produce work as primary energy was consumed in USA and Canada during 1988

[en] Saving natural resources as water is highly demanded all over the world. In agricultural systems is specially necessary to develop new technologies for water reuse and reclamation. The use of livestock wastewater is increasing over the years as supply the scarcity of irrigation water in agricultural lands. Constructed wetlands (CWs) are considered effective for the management and reclamation of livestock wastewater and others wastewater such as domestic, municipal sewage, storm water runoff, landfill leachate, or industrial wastewater before their reuse or discharge. Pig slurry (PS) has been frequently used as an organic fertilizer in direct application to soil, sometimes uncontrolled with the subsequent environmental risk of pollution. A low investment such as CW can increase the quality of this wastewater being a source of water and nutrients for agricultural purposes avoiding environmental risks. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of CW for treating PS for reuse as agricultural irrigation. This study was carried out in Lorca, Murcia Region. SE Spain. The integrated purification system was composed by a pretreatment that includes a storing tank, phases separator, shaking tank and sedimentation tank, also a horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands and a storage pond as secondary treatment. This system worked with an intermittent flow mode and a hydraulic retention time of 3 days. The samples were collected by triplicate at the outlet of each module of the system and physicochemical and microbial parameters were analyzed to calculate the efficiency of the whole system. The results showed a removal efficiency for STS (95 %), DQO (81%), DBO5 (78%), EC (16%), KN (62%), N-NH4 (53%), P (98%). Microbial parameters were removed in 100 % for most of them, such as total coliforms, fecal coliforms, E. coli, Salmonella and Shigella. Therefore, according to obtained results, treated pig slurry has better physic-chemical and microbial characteristics to be applied in agricultural soils. In addition, this study shows the possibility to save irrigation water using a low cost technology as CW reclaiming PS and minimizing environmental pollution.

[en] Symbolic Exergoeconomics is a methodology for calculating all exergy-cost variables of a plant as a function of: Input exergy resources F_T or output exergy products P_T; Exergy efficiencies of the subsystems (k_i); Bifurcation exergy ratios (x_i); Amortization cost of the subsystems, Z_i and the exergy unit prices of the input flows c_ωi. This paper reports that this technique can be applied in many diverse fields of energy analysis, such as simulation, optimization and cost-accounting and the analysis of perturbations and sensitivity of thermal systems. In spite of the existence of the theory, the analytical studies are restricted by the limitations of human capacity to algebraically handle dozens of variables for practical cases. What is needed is a symbolic manipulation program to obtain the formulae for the different exergoeconomic parameters of any exergy structure. This would enable the scientific and technical community to use and develop the facilities of symbolic exergoeconomics

[en] The wastewater generated by industrial activity contains a huge amount of contaminants, if this wastewater is not treated and managed properly, several environmental damages can be caused. In this study, constructed wetlands were used to treat wastewater from tannery industry in order to valorize and reuse it without any damages on the environment. This technology is environmental friendly, has low costs of implantation and management, and it has been used successfully in wastewater treatment, achieving notable decreases in the concentration of the main potential contaminants. This research aim to decrease contaminants concentration in tannery wastewater using a horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetland (HSFCW) as ecofriendly system. This study was carried out in Lorca, Murcia Region, Spain. The constructed wetland was worked in series, and it was composed by three cells filled with coarse gravel in the bottom (80 cm) and washed sand in the top (20 cm), and planted with Phragmites australis as phytoextractor species. The hydraulic retention times (HRT) in the wetland were 3 and 9 days. Three cycles were performanced for each HRT and the samples were collected in triplicate. Chromium (Cr), boron (B), Kjeldahl Nitrogen (KN) and phosphorus (P) concentrations were analyzed and the removal efficiencies were calculated. The contaminants levels were reduced for both HRTs, being 3 days the most effective retention time with a removal efficiency of 83% for chromium rather than HRT = 9 days with a removal efficiency of 60% for this element. In addition, the best results of B, KN and P removal were obtained with a HRT of 3 days being the efficiency of 41, 90 and 75%, respectively. Nevertheless, HRT = 9 showed a removal percentage of 33, 87 and 67 for B, KN and P, respectively. Therefore, the results of this study showed that horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands are a sustainable system for treating tannery wastewater. However the chemical/physical processes into the HSFCF should be evaluated in detail in order to understand the removal mechanisms of these elements.

[en] The LHC has planned a series of upgrades culminating in the High Luminosity LHC which will have an average luminosity 5-7 times larger than the nominal Run 2 value. The ATLAS Tile Calorimeter will undergo an upgrade to accommodate the HL-LHC parameters. The TileCal readout electronics will be redesigned, introducing a new readout strategy. A Demonstrator program has been developed to evaluate the new proposed readout architecture and prototypes of all the components. In the Demonstrator, the detector data received in the Tile PreProcessors (PPr) are stored in pipeline buffers and upon the reception of an external trigger signal the data events are processed, packed and readout in parallel through the legacy ROD system, the new Front-End Link eXchange system and an ethernet connection for monitoring purposes. This contribution describes in detail the data processing and the hardware, firmware and software components of the TileCal Demonstrator readout system. (paper)

[en] The amount of carbon dioxide in atmosphere increase due to deforestation and anthropogenic emissions. The consumption of this gas in vegetal ecosystems must also be considered to know the net mass of CO₂ that gets into the atmosphere. This article summarizes the methodology, results and conclusions of the carbon dioxide balance in Spain by autonomous communities. The different fossil fuel consumer sectors (Thermal power plants, industry, transport, domestic and agricultural), forest biomass reduction due to fires and wood extractions for firewood are considered as sources. As sinks, natural and reforested forests, and the equivalent sea are noticed. Basically, the article presents a new methodology to estimate carbon dioxide consumption in forest biomass. The average emissions for 1981 to 1990 are presented. A per capita value of 5 t(CO₂/year is obtained in contrast to the EC average of 8,6 t(CO₂) year. The resulting net balance shows that it is only consumed between 20 and 50% of the emitted CO₂. (Author) 47 refs

[en] The Tile Calorimeter PreProcessor demonstrator is a high performance double AMC board based on FPGA resources and QSFP modules. This board has been designed in the framework of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter Demonstrator project for the Phase II Upgrade as the first stage of the back-end electronics. The TilePPr demonstrator has been conceived to receive and process the data coming from the front-end electronics of the TileCal Demonstrator module, as well as to configure it. Moreover, the TilePPr demonstrator handles the communication with the Detector Control System to monitor and control the front-end electronics. The TilePPr demonstrator represents 1/8 of the final TilePPr that will be designed and installed into the detector for the ATLAS Phase II Upgrade

[en] The analog signals generated in the read-out electronics of particle detectors are shaped prior to the digitization in order to improve the signal to noise ratio (SNR). The real amplitude of the analog signal is then obtained using digital filters, which provides information about the energy deposited in the detector. The classical digital filters have a good performance in ideal situations with Gaussian electronic noise and no pulse shape distortion. However, high-energy particle colliders, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, can produce multiple simultaneous events, which produce signal pileup. The performance of classical digital filters deteriorates in these conditions since the signal pulse shape gets distorted. In addition, this type of experiments produces a high rate of collisions, which requires high throughput data acquisitions systems. In order to cope with these harsh requirements, new read-out electronics systems are based on high-performance FPGAs, which permit the utilization of more advanced real-time signal reconstruction algorithms. In this paper, a deep learning method is proposed for real-time signal reconstruction in high pileup particle detectors. The performance of the new method has been studied using simulated data and the results are compared with a classical FIR filter method. In particular, the signals and FIR filter used in the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter are used as benchmark. The implementation, resources usage and performance of the proposed Neural Network algorithm in FPGA are also presented.

[en] The installation of new electrical power plants from renewable sources is key in the transition towards a low-carbon economy. An important amount of diverse raw materials is required for this development. Due to its current prominence among renewable energy sources, we assess the expected development of wind energy towards the availability of the required raw materials up to 2050. Wind power is found to be in a favourable position, over solar thermal and photovoltaic power. Among the two main wind turbine technologies, the installation of direct drive turbines with permanent magnets faces a more challenging future. Recycling is an important strategy to simultaneously reduce risks and costs. (paper)

[en] Physical hydronomics (PH) is the specific application of thermodynamics that physically characterizes the governance of water bodies, i.e., the Water Framework Directive (WFD) for European Union citizens. In this paper, calculation procedures for the exergy analysis of river basins are developed within the WFD guidelines and a case study is developed. Therefore, it serves as an example for the feasible application of PH in the environmental cost assessment of water bodies, accordingly to the principle of recovery of the costs related to water services in accordance with the polluter pays principle, one of the milestones of the WFD. The Foix River watershed, a small river located at the Inland Basins of Catalonia (IBC), has been analyzed. Main results, difficulties, and constraints encountered are shown in the paper. Following WFD's quantity and quality objectives previously defined, water costs are calculated and the equivalence between the exergy loss due to water users and the exergy variation along the river are also analyzed.