Luis Alberto Morales Hernández

Two new remarkable Nolinaceae from Central Mexico

Two new species of Nolinaceae are described and illustrated. The first is a ponytail palm,Beaucarnea compacta, occuring in xerophytic scrub in the Sierra Madre Oriental near Atarjea, Guanajuato. The second new species isCalibanus glassianus, adding the second species to the genusCalibanus. This new species is found in the transition between tropical deciduous forest to subontane scrub in the Sierra Madre Oriental near Xichú, Guanajuato.AbstractSe describen e ilustran dos nuevas especies de Nolinaceae. La primera es una pata de elefante o palma petacona,Beaucarnea compacta. Se distribuye en matorrales xerófitos de la Sierra madre Oriental cerca de Atarjea, Guanajuato. La segunda nueva especie esCalibanus glassianus, que adiciona una especie más al géneroCalibanus. Esta nueva especie se encuentra en la transición de bosques tropicales caducifolios con matorrales xerófilos de la sierra Madre Oriental en los alrededores de Xichú, Guanajuato.

Biopsychosocial Assessment of Pain with Thermal Imaging of Emotional Facial Expression in Breast Cancer Survivors

Background: Recent research has evaluated psychological and biological characteristics associated with pain in survivors of breast cancer (BC). Few studies consider their relationship with inflammatory activity. Voluntary facial expressions modify the autonomic activity and this may be useful in the hospital environment for clinical biopsychosocial assessment of pain. Methods: This research compared a BC survivors group under integral treatment (Oncology, Psychology, Nutrition) with a control group to assess the intensity of pain, behavioral interference, anxiety, depression, temperament-expression, anger control, social isolation, emotional regulation, and alexithymia and inflammatory activity, with salivary interleukin 6 (IL-6). Then, a psychophysiological evaluation through repeated measures of facial infrared thermal imaging (IRT) and hands in baseline—positive facial expression (joy)—negative facial expression (pain)—relaxation (diaphragmatic breathing). Results: The results showed changes in the IRT (p < 0.05) during the execution of facial expressions in the chin, perinasal, periorbital, frontal, nose, and fingers areas in both groups. No differences were found in the IL-6 level among the aforementioned groups, but an association with baseline nasal temperature (p < 0.001) was observable. The BC group had higher alexithymia score (p < 0.01) but lower social isolation (p < 0.05), in comparison to the control group. Conclusions: In the low- and medium-concentration groups of IL-6, the psychophysiological intervention proposed in this study has a greater effect than on the high concentration group of IL-6. This will be considered in the design of psychological and psychosocial interventions for the treatment of pain.

Segmentation in thermography images for bearing defect analysis in induction motors

This paper proposes a methodology to be used in the segmentation of infrared thermography images for the detection of bearing faults in induction motors. The proposed methodology can be a helpful tool for preventive and predictive maintenance of the induction motor. This methodology is based on manual threshold image processing to obtain a segmentation of an infrared thermal image, which is used for the detection of critical points known as hot spots on the system under test. From these hot spots, the parameters of interest that describe the thermal behavior of the induction motor were obtained. With the segmented image, it is possible to compare and analyze the thermal conditions of the system.

Real-Time Monitoring of Voltage Variations using Mathematical Morphology

The monitoring of short- and long-duration root-mean-square voltage variations is still an open and demanding issue for academic and industrial fields. In this work, a methodology based on mathematical morphology operations such as dilation and erosion for monitoring of voltage variations is proposed. It consists of three stages: 1) denoising, 2) tracking and detection, and 3) final classification according to the IEEE Std. 1159. In order to validate and test the proposal, a set of synthetic and real signals is used, including the database of the IEEE work group P1159.3. The obtained results demonstrate the proposal effectiveness to detect and classify voltage variations, even when they are embedded in high-level noise. Finally, a hardware implementation based on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) is also developed as a system-on-a-chip (SoC) solution to offer an online and real-time monitoring of voltage variations, which is also possible thanks to the low complexity of the proposal.