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Multilayered sheets of AA1050 and AA7050 Al alloys produced by hot accumulative roll bonding (ARB) are tested to estimate their forming limit diagrams (FLDs). Sheets processed with preheating at 450 and 500¿°C for up to six ARB cycles are submitted to Nakazima tests with an in situ digital image correlation system and tensile tests to analyze the mechanical behavior. X-ray measurements and electron backscatter diffraction are performed to obtain the crystallographic texture and the mesotexture, respectively, and thus characterize the heterogeneous microstructure. A bimodal grain size distribution is observed in these sheets since AA7050 layers present elongated and fine grain size with nanometric precipitates and AA1050 layers present coarser and equiaxed grains. In addition, texture analysis indicates both rolling and shear components in the sheets. The FLDs show that the forming properties did not follow the expected rule of mixtures when compared with monolithic alloy sheets. Overall, the multilayered AA1050/AA7050 processed by means of ARB at 500¿°C presents better formability than that at 450¿°C, due to the combination of lower anisotropy measured by the Lankford coefficients values close to 1 and low normal anisotropy ¿r values.

Downscaling simulations for emission scenario RCP8.5 with a regionally coupled ocean-atmosphere climate system model indicate a regime shift in the dynamics of Atlantic nutrient supply to the Northwest European Shelf. Reduced winter convection in the Northeast Atlantic leads to a substantial decrease in upper ocean nutrient concentrations. Yet, vertical mixing processes at the shelf break maintain a connection to nutrient-enriched subpycnocline water masses and decouple the nutrient supply to the shelf from upper ocean conditions in the North Atlantic. As a consequence, primary production on the shelf does not weaken as strongly as it was expected from declining nutrient concentrations in the open ocean. Furthermore, nutrient fluxes to the shelf become increasingly variable due to a positive feedback between the winter mixed layer depth near the shelf break and the density of the upper water column, making the productivity on the shelf more sensitive to the major modes of variability in the North Atlantic.

In this study, new polyurethanes (PUs) were prepared by using inulin and polycaprolactone as polyols. Their structure and morphology were determined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman dispersive spectroscopy, Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H NMR and 13C NMR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), whereas their mechanical properties were evaluated by a universal testing machine. Additionally, their water uptake, swelling behavior, and degradation were evaluated to be used as drug delivery carriers. Therefore, an anti-cancer drug was loaded to these PUs with 25% of loading efficiency and its release behavior was studied using different theoretical models to unveil its mechanism. Finally, the ability of the new PUs to be used as a clip marker in breast biopsy was evaluated. The results clearly demonstrate that these PUs are safe and can be used as intelligent drug release matrices for targeted drug delivery and exhibits positive results to be used for clip marker and in general for breast cancer applications.

Simulations of the North Sea circulation by the global ocean model MPI-OM and the regional ocean models GETM, HAMSOM, NEMO, TRIM are compared against each other and with observational data for the period 1998–2009. The aim of the study is to evaluate the quality of the simulations in particular with respect to their suitability to drive biogeochemical shelf sea models. Our results demonstrate the benefit of the global model to avoid the specification of lateral open boundary conditions. Due to its stretched grid configuration, which provides a higher grid resolution at the Northwest European Shelf, the global model is able to reproduce the large-scale features, such as the water mass distribution and the thermal stratification in the central and northern North Sea, qualitatively similar to the regional models. The simulation of temperature and salinity near the coast however, shows large biases in almost all models because of the coarse meteorological forcing and too coarse vertical resolutions. The simulation of the Baltic Sea exchange and the spread of freshwater along the Norwegian coast proved difficult for all models except GETM, which reproduces impacts of the Baltic Sea outflow reasonably well.

Characterizing and understanding the basic functioning of the Mediterranean Sea in terms of heat and salt redistribution within the basin is a crucial issue to predict its evolution. Here we quantify and analyze the heat and salt transfers using a simple box model consisting of four layers in the vertical for each of the two (western and eastern) basins. Namely, we box-average 14 regional simulations of the Med-CORDEX ensemble plus a regional and a global reanalysis, computing for each of them the heat and salt exchanges between layers. First, we analyze in detail the mechanisms behind heat and salt redistribution at different time scales from the outputs of a single simulation (NEMOMED8). We show that in the western basin the transfer between layer 1 (0–150 m) and layer 2 (150–600 m) is upwards for most models both for heat and salt, while in the eastern basin both transfers are downwards. A feature common to both basins is that the transports are smaller in summer than in winter due to the enhanced stratification, which dampen the mixing between layers. From the comparison of the 16 simulations we observe that the spread between models is much larger than the ensemble average for the salt transfer and for the heat transfer between layer 1 and layer 2. At lower layers (below 600 m) there is a set of models showing a good agreement between them, while others are not correlated with any other. The mechanisms behind the ensemble spread are not straightforward. First, to have a coarse resolution prevents the model to correctly represent the heat and salt redistribution in the basin. Second, those models with a very different initial stratification also show a very different redistribution, especially at intermediate and deep layers. Finally, the assimilation of data seems to perturb the heat and salt redistribution. Besides this, the differences among regional models that share similar spatial resolution and initial conditions are induced by more subtle mechanisms which depend on the variable and process analyzed. In order to reduce the uncertainties in the Mediterranean regional climate projections further modelling studies and better observational datasets are needed to constrain the main sources of discrepancies among models. In the absence of those, an ensemble modelling approach as the one followed in the Med-CORDEX initiative seems to be the best solution to evaluate model uncertainties into the future climate projections.

Climate change impact studies for the Northwest European Shelf (NWES) make use of various dynamical downscaling strategies in the experimental setup of regional ocean circulation models. Projected change signals from coupled and uncoupled downscalings with different domain sizes and forcing global and regional models show substantial uncertainty. In this paper, we investigate influences of the downscaling strategy on projected changes in the physical and biogeochemical conditions of the NWES. Our results indicate that uncertainties due to different downscaling strategies are similar to uncertainties due to the choice of the parent global model and the downscaling regional model. Downscaled change signals reveal to depend stronger on the downscaling strategy than on the model skills in simulating present-day conditions. Uncoupled downscalings of sea surface temperature (SST) changes are found to be tightly constrained by the atmospheric forcing. The incorporation of coupled air–sea interaction, by contrast, allows the regional model system to develop independently. Changes in salinity show a higher sensitivity to open lateral boundary conditions and river runoff than to coupled or uncoupled atmospheric forcings. Dependencies on the downscaling strategy for changes in SST, salinity, stratification and circulation collectively affect changes in nutrient import and biological primary production.

This study investigates patterns of spatio-temporal variability in the North Sea and their major driving mechanisms. Leading variability modes of the general circulation and sea water temperature are extracted from model results by means of Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF) analysis. The model results originate from an uncoupled simulation with the global ocean model MPIOM, forced with ERA40 reanalysis data at the air–sea interface. For this regional model study, MPIOM has been run with a stretched grid configuration enabling higher horizontal resolution in the Northwest European Shelf and North Atlantic ocean. The analysis is applied to interannual variabilities of winter and summer separately. The results indicate that on seasonal scales the leading variability mode of the general circulation affects the entire North Sea, accompanied by significant inflow anomalies through the Fair-Isle Passage. Correlations of the corresponding Principal Component (PC) with wind density functions reveal the circulation anomalies to coincide with westerly and south-westerly wind anomalies. The second mode describes circulation anomalies along the Norwegian Trench and English Channel, which correlate with north-westerly wind anomalies caused by variations in large-scale atmospheric pressure areas centered over the British Isles. For sea water temperature, distinct variability patterns are induced by variable surface heat fluxes, vertical mixing, and variable advective heat fluxes. The first mode of both the general circulation and water temperature in winter mainly represents the response to atmospheric variations in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). However, the higher modes account for such variabilities that cannot be explained by the NAO. As a consequence of the integrated effects of the different variability modes on the circulation system and heat content, local correlations of the NAO with volume transports and water temperature are weakened in the regions of Atlantic inflow.

The transferability of the regional climate model REMO with a standard setup over different regions of the world has been evaluated. The study is based on the idea that the modeling parameters and parameterizations in a regional climate model should be robust to adequately simulate the major climatic characteristic of different regions around the globe. If a model is not able to do that, there might be a chance of an “overtuning” to the “home-region”, which means that the model physics are tuned in a way that it might cover some more fundamental errors, e.g., in the dynamics. All simulations carried out in this study contribute to the joint effort by the international regional downscaling community called COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment (CORDEX). REMO has been integrated over six CORDEX domains forced with the so-called perfect boundary conditions obtained from the global reanalysis dataset ERA-Interim for the period 1989 to 2008. These six domains include Africa, Europe, North America, South America, West Asia and the Mediterranean region. Each of the six simulations was conducted with the identical model setup which allows investigating the transferability of a single model to regions with substantially different climate characteristics. For the consistent evaluation over the different domains, a new evaluation framework is presented by combining the Köppen-Trewartha climate classification with temperature-precipitation relationship plots and a probability density function (PDF) skill score method. The evaluation of the spatial and temporal characteristics of simulated precipitation and temperature, in comparison to observational datasets, shows that REMO is able to simulate the mean annual climatic features over all the domains quite reasonably, but still some biases remain. The regions over the Amazon and near the coast of major upwelling regions have a significant warm bias. Wet and dry biases appear over the mountainous regions and East Africa, respectively. The temperature over South America and precipitation over the tundra and highland climate of West Asia are misrepresented. The probable causes leading to these biases are discussed and ideas for improvements are suggested. The annual cycle of precipitation and temperature of major catchments in each domain are also well represented by REMO. The model has performed well in simulating the inter- and intra-seasonal characteristics of different climate types in different regions. Moreover, the model has a high ability in representing the general characteristics of different climate types as measured by the probability density function (PDF) skill score method. Although REMO seems to perform best over its home domain in Europe (domain of development and testing), the model has simulated quite well the climate characteristics of other regions with the same set of parameterization options. Therefore, these results lead us to the conclusion that REMO is well suited for long-term climate change simulations to examine projected future changes in all these regions.

The paper examines the impact on gasoline demand in Mexico that may arise from the identified surge in number of private vehicles that occurs in developing countries when a certain income per capita is reached, insofar as the country's GDP/capita in the year 2000 is extremely close to the threshold value. “Rapid Automobile Growth” scenarios corresponding to different economic growth rates are compared with a “Business As Usual” one, to exhibit the corresponding surge in gasoline demand to be expected from this personal income shock. Its occurrence requires to reassess not only the current energy supply policies but also the environmental ones.

La presente investigación descriptivo-correlacional explora la Percepción de los Procesos de Trabajo según el Índice de Cociente Emocional en los colaboradores del área de Desarrollo de Sistemas de la banca privada de Lima especializados en el desarrollo de software usando Cobol, según el cargo que ocupan, responsabilidad familiar, nivel de instrucción y edades. Para tal fin, se hace uso del cuestionario de Inteligencia Emocional de Bar-On (1997) en la versión adaptada a la realidad nacional por Zoila Abanto y Leonardo Higueras en el año 2000; así mismo complementamos nuestro instrumento con una escala de 35 ítems formulados en base a la definición de Procesos de Trabajo según la taxonomía de condiciones de trabajo propuesta por Peiró y Prieto (1996), lo cual es estadísticamente válido y confiable. Esta investigación brinda importante información a la Psicología Organizacional, siendo que los resultados nos muestran la existencia de una relación entre el Índice de Cociente Emocional y la Percepción de los Procesos de Trabajo para la muestra seleccionada; además de la existencia de una relación entre la autoestima con el cargo desempeñado y la edad; y las Relaciones Interpersonales y la Flexibilidad con el nivel de instrucción según el análisis de grupos. Palabras Claves: Índice de Cociente Emocional, Procesos de Trabajo, Desarrollo de Sistemas, Banca privada de Lima, Cobol. --- This descriptive-correlational research explores the relationship between Perception of Work Processes as Emotional Quotient Index reviewers in the area of Systems Development Lima private banking specializing in software development using Cobol, according to the position they occupy, family responsibility, level of education and age. To this end, using the questionnaire on Emotional Intelligence Bar- On (1997) as adapted to the national situation by Zoila Abanto and Leonardo Higueras in 2000 version is done; also complement our instrument with a scale of 35 items formulated based on the definition of Work Processes according to the taxonomy of working condition proposed by Peiró & Prieto (1996), which is statistically valid and reliable. This research provides important information to the Organizational Psychology, with the results show the existence of a relationship between Emotional Quotient Index and Perception of work Processes for the selected sample, in addition to the existence of a relationship between self-esteem played with the charge and age, and Interpersonal Relationships and Flexibility with the level of education according to the cluster analysis. Keywords: Emotional Quotient Index, Work Processes, Systems Development, Private Banking Lima, Cobol. Tesis

In this article, the authors describe an innovative multimodel system developed within the Climate Change and Impact Research: The Mediterranean Environment (CIRCE) European Union (EU) Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) project and used to produce simulations of the Mediterranean Sea regional climate. The models include high-resolution Mediterranean Sea components, which allow assessment of the role of the basin and in particular of the air–sea feedbacks in the climate of the region. The models have been integrated from 1951 to 2050, using observed radiative forcings during the first half of the simulation period and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B scenario during the second half. The projections show a substantial warming (about 1.5°–2°C) and a significant decrease of precipitation (about 5%) in the region for the scenario period. However, locally the changes might be even larger. In the same period, the projected surface net heat loss decreases, leading to a weaker cooling of the Mediterranean Sea by the atmosphere, whereas the water budget appears to increase, leading the basin to lose more water through its surface than in the past. Overall, these results are consistent with the findings of previous scenario simulations, such as the Prediction of Regional Scenarios and Uncertainties for Defining European Climate Change Risks and Effects (PRUDENCE), Ensemble-Based Predictions of Climate Changes and Their Impacts (ENSEMBLES), and phase 3 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3). The agreement suggests that these findings are robust to substantial changes in the configuration of the models used to make the simulations. Finally, the models produce a 2021–50 mean steric sea level rise that ranges between +7 and +12 cm, with respect to the period of reference.

In this chapter we show results from an innovative multi-model system used to produce climate simulations with a realistic representation of the Mediterranean Sea. The models (hereafter simply referred to as the “CIRCE models”) are a set of five coupled climate models composed by a high-resolution Mediterranean Sea coupled with a relatively high-resolution atmospheric component and a global ocean, which allow, for the first time, to explore and assess the role of the Mediterranean Sea and its complex, small-scale dynamics in the climate of the region. In particular, they make it possible to investigate the influence that local air-sea feedbacks might exert on the mechanisms responsible for climate variability and change in the European continent, Middle East and Northern Africa. In many regards, they represent a new and innovative approach to the problem of regionalization of climate projections in the Mediterranean region.

The European summer 2003 presents a rare opportunity to investigate dynamical interactions in the otherwise variable European climate. Not only did air temperature show a distinct signal, but the Mediterranean sea surface temperature (SST) was also exceptionally warm. The traditional view of the role of the Mediterranean Sea in the climate system highlights the influence of the atmospheric circulation on the Mediterranean Sea. The question of whether the Mediterranean Sea feeds back on the atmospheric dynamics is of central importance. The case of the extremely anomalous summer 2003 allows for investigating the issue under realistic boundary conditions. The present study takes advantage of a newly developed regional coupled atmosphere–ocean model for this purpose. Experiments with prescribed historical versus climatological SST suggest that the local atmospheric circulation is not strongly sensitive to the state of the Mediterranean Sea, but its influence on the moisture balance and its role in the regional hydrological cycle is substantial. Warmer Mediterranean SSTs lead to enhanced evaporation and moisture transport in the atmosphere. Results of regional coupled simulations with different ocean initial conditions imply that because of the strong stratification of the surface waters in summer, the response time of the upper layers of the Mediterranean Sea to atmospheric forcing is rather short. It can be concluded that the role of the Mediterranean Sea in the European summer climate is mostly passive. In winter, however, since the upper layers of the Mediterranean Sea are well mixed, the memory of the Mediterranean SSTs stretches over longer time scales, which implies a potential for actively governing regional climate characteristics to some extent.

International audience; Within the CIRCE project "Climate change and Impact Research: the Mediterranean Environment", an ensemble of high resolution coupled atmosphere-ocean regional climate models (AORCMs) are used to simulate the Mediterranean climate for the period 1950-2050. For the first time, realistic net surface air-sea fluxes are obtained. The sea surface temperature (SST) variability is consistent with the atmospheric forcing above it and oceanic constraints. The surface fluxes respond to external forcing under a warming climate and show an equivalent trend in all models. This study focuses on the present day and on the evolution of the heat and water budget over the Mediterranean Sea under the SRES-A1B scenario. On the contrary to previous studies, the net total heat budget is negative over the present period in all AORCMs and satisfies the heat closure budget controlled by a net positive heat gain at the strait of Gibraltar in the present climate. Under climate change scenario, some models predict a warming of the Mediterranean Sea from the ocean surface (positive net heat flux) in addition to the positive flux at the strait of Gibraltar for the 2021-2050 period. The shortwave and latent flux are increasing and the longwave and sensible fluxes are decreasing compared to the 1961-1990 period due to a reduction of the cloud cover and an increase in greenhouse gases (GHGs) and SSTs over the 2021-2050 period. The AORCMs provide a good estimates of the water budget with a drying of the region during the twenty-first century. For the ensemble mean, he decrease in precipitation and runoff is about 10 and 15% respectively and the increase in evaporation is much weaker, about 2% compared to the 1961-1990 period which confirm results obtained in recent studies. Despite a clear consistency in the trends and results between the models, this study also underlines important differences in the model set-ups, methodology and choices of some physical parameters inducing some difference in the various air-sea fluxes. An evaluation of the uncertainty sources and possible improvement for future generation of AORCMs highlights the importance of the parameterisation of the ocean albedo, rivers and cloud cover. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.

The objective of this chapter is to make a review on the state of the art of regional climate modeling over the Mediterranean. Two main parts are developed. The first one is devoted to atmospheric parameters and the basic performance of both global and regional climate models in simulating the Mediterranean climate. We focus on the added-value that high-resolution models can bring in terms of surface winds, surface hydrology and intense rainfall events. The second part deals with the general circulation of the Mediterranean Sea. We make a general review on the performance of current oceanic models of both coarse resolution (about 1 to 2 degrees) and high resolution (about 1/8 to 1/16 degrees). A comparison among a few coupled models gives a good assessment about our current skill in modeling the Mediterranean climate.

Planton, Serge et al., Capítulo de: LIONELLO, Piero (ed.). The Climate of the Mediterranean Region: From the Past to Future. London: Elsevier, 2012

We investigate the performance of one stretched-grid atmospheric global model, five different regional climate models and a statistical downscaling technique in simulating 3 months (January 1971, November 1986, July 1996) characterized by anomalous climate conditions in the southern La Plata Basin. Models were driven by reanalysis (ERA-40). The analysis has emphasized on the simulation of the precipitation over land and has provided a quantification of the biases of and scatter between the different regional simulations. Most but not all dynamical models underpredict precipitation amounts in south eastern South America during the three periods. Results suggest that models have regime dependence, performing better for some conditions than others. The models' ensemble and the statistical technique succeed in reproducing the overall observed frequency of daily precipitation for all periods. But most models tend to underestimate the frequency of dry days and overestimate the amount of light rainfall days. The number of events with strong or heavy precipitation tends to be under simulated by the models. Fil: Menendez, Claudio Guillermo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; Argentina Fil: de Castro, M.. Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha; España Fil: Boulanger, J. P.. Universite de Bretagne Occidentale. Departamento Umr 6538; Francia. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; Francia Fil: D'Onofrio, A.. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; Argentina Fil: Sanchez, E.. Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha; España Fil: Sörensson, Anna. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; Argentina Fil: Blazquez, Josefina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; Argentina Fil: Elizalde, A.. Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha; España Fil: Jacob, D.. Max Planck Institute for Meteorology; Alemania Fil: Le Treut, H.. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; Francia Fil: Li, Z. X.. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; Francia Fil: Nuñez, Mario Nestor. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; Argentina Fil: Pessacg, Natalia Liz. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; Argentina Fil: Pfeiffer, S.. Max Planck Institute for Meteorology; Alemania Fil: Rojas, M.. Universidad de Chile; Chile Fil: Rolla, Alfredo Luis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; Argentina Fil: Samuelsson, P.. Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute; Suecia Fil: Solman, Silvina Alicia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; Argentina Fil: Teichmann, C.. Max Planck Institute for Meteorology; Alemania