Simón Bolívar University

About: Simón Bolívar University is a education organization based out in Caracas, Venezuela. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Crystallization. The organization has 5912 authors who have published 8294 publications receiving 126152 citations.

A response to scientific and societal needs for marine biological observations

Abstract: Development of global ocean observing capacity for the biological EOVs is on the cusp of a step-change. Current capacity to automate data collection and processing and to integrate the resulting data streams with complementary data, openly available as FAIR data, is certain to dramatically increase the amount and quality of information and knowledge available to scientists and decision makers into the future. There is little doubt that scientists will continue to expand their understanding of what lives in the ocean, where it lives and how it is changing. However, whether this expanding information stream will inform policy and management or be incorporated into indicators for national reporting is more uncertain. Coordinated data collection including open sharing of data will help produce the consistent evidence-based messages that are valued by managers. The GOOS Biology and Ecosystems Panel is working with other global initiatives to assist this coordination by defining and implementing Essential Ocean Variables. The biological EOVs have been defined, are being updated following community feedback, and their implementation is underway. In 2019, the coverage and precision of a global ocean observing system capable of addressing key questions for the next decade will be quantified, and its potential to support the goals of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development identified. Developing a global ocean observing system for biology and ecosystems requires parallel efforts in improving evidence-based monitoring of progress against international agreements and the open data, reporting and governance structures that would facilitate the uptake of improved information by decision makers.

Lexical Reading in Spanish: Two Cases of Phonological Dyslexia.

Abstract: The way spoken language is represented by orthographic structure is thought to influence the cognitive reading mechanism for a language, and therefore language breakdown patterns should reflect this. The present article focuses on two patients, both monolingual native Spanish speakers, who were able to read words but showed great difficulty in reading nonwords. This finding could be attributed to the fact that these patients were reading globally using a lexical route. This pattern of reading behavior is known as phonological dyslexia. It has been argued that lexical reading is not an option for Spanish readers since its orthography is highly regular. Our findings contradict this hypothesis and support the view that cognitive reading mechanisms are universal.

Relationship Between Sulfidation and HDS Catalytic Activity of Activated Carbon Supported Mo, Fe–Mo, Co–Mo and Ni–Mo Carbides

Abstract: Temperature-programmed sulfiding (TPS) and temperature-programmed reduction of the sulfided catalysts (TPR-S) have been employed to evaluate Mo, Fe–Mo, Co–Mo and Ni–Mo carbide catalysts supported on activated carbon (AC). The carbides were prepared by carbothermal hydrogen reduction from co-impregnated precursors, and submitted to presulfiding prior to HDS. Samples of passivated catalysts prepared from the sulfates of Fe and Co contained variable amounts of sulfur, as shown by XPS and elemental analysis, while all samples showed increased sulfur contents after HDS. The TPS traces (up to 400 °C) of the Mo and Co–Mo samples exhibited two H2S consumption peaks, the first one starting at 100 °C and the second within the 400 °C isothermal region, located immediately after a H2S production peak centered at 400 °C for Mo and at 340 °C for Co–Mo. The Fe–Mo and Ni–Mo carbides exhibited a broad H2S consumption signal between 100 and 400 °C. The low temperature signals can be attributed to reduction of Mo(VI) oxide into Mo(V) or Mo(IV) sulfides, while the broad, higher temperature band is assigned to further reduction to the fully sulfided surface species. The TPR-S spectra showed three H2S evolution peaks, where the area of the first peak (assigned to reduction of sulfur species adsorbed on coordinatively unsaturated edge/corner sites) follows the order Co–Mo ≫ Ni–Mo ≈ Mo > Fe–Mo, which fully agrees with the order of HDS activities at steady state. Elemental analysis of the pre-sulfided AC support suggest that a large part of the sulfur consumed in sulfiding the catalysts is retained as elemental sulfur within the microporous structure of the support, although HRTEM observations confirm that MoS2-like structures are present in these samples. These results reinforce the importance of sulfided surface phases in HDS on carbides of transition metal catalysts. Transmission electron microscopy shows that activated carbon supported (M-)Mo carbide catalysts (M = Fe, Co, Ni) present MoS2-like fringes on top of bimetallic carbide crystals. Temperature-programmed techniques and elemental analysis prove that a large amount of sulfur is retained in the catalyst, likely within the slit-shaped microporous structure of the support. A good correlation was established between thiophene HDS activity at steady state and the size of a TPR peak of sulfided catalyst samples.

Application of computational fluid dynamics and surrogate-coupled evolutionary computing to enhance centrifugal-pump performance

Abstract: To reduce the total design and optimization time, numerical analysis with surrogate-based approaches is being used in turbomachinery optimization. In this work, multiple surrogates are coupled with an evolutionary genetic algorithm to find the Pareto optimal fronts (PoFs) of two centrifugal pumps with different specifications in order to enhance their performance. The two pumps were used a centrifugal pump commonly used in industry (Case I) and an electrical submersible pump used in the petroleum industry (Case II). The objectives are to enhance head and efficiency of the pumps at specific flow rates. Surrogates such as response surface approximation (RSA), Kriging (KRG), neural networks and weighted-average surrogates (WASs) were used to determine the PoFs. To obtain the objective functions’ values and to understand the flow physics, Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations were solved. It is found that the WAS performs better for both the objectives than any other individual surrogate. The best...