The World Health Organization estimates that 17 million people die of cardiovascular disease, particularly heart attacks and strokes, every year. Most strokes are caused by a blood clot that occludes an artery in the cerebral circulation and the process concerning the removal of this obstruction involves catheterisation. The fundamental object of the presented study consists in determining and optimizing the necessary simulation model corresponding with the blood clot zone to be implemented jointly with other Mechanical Thrombectomy Device simulation models, which have become more widely used during the last decade. To do so, a multidomain technique is used to better explain the different aspects of the attachment to the artery wall and between the existing platelets, it being possible to obtain the mathematical equations that define the full model. For a better understanding, a consecutive approximation to the definitive model will be presented, analyzing the different problems found during the study. The final presented model considers an elastic characterization of the blood clot composition and the possibility of obtaining a consecutive detachment process from the artery wall. In conclusion, the presented model contains the necessary behaviour laws to be implemented in future blood clot simulation models.

Electrical dimensioning design in a railway infrastructure has high complexity and is strongly nonlinear. There are several parameters and constraints to take into account. The presented methodology is working to improve the decision making about the design, hence developing an expert system. The final set of possible solutions that the method is achieved is based on a pair of main objectives. On the one hand are installation costs, environmental impact, main electrical components costs such as catenary, traction substations, neutral zones, and the difficulty to connect substation to general electric grid. On the other hand are exploitation costs, such as maintenance costs and energy loss depending on the dimensioning design. A specific line discretization has been developed in order to distribute the critical zones along the line. Integration of a multiobjective genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), hence the code of the genotype, is another highlight. Electrical analysis, railway systems using single alternate current (1 × 25), and a simplification due to the search of the highest peaks of power demanded by the trains during simulations help to minimize the quantity of studies. Every simulation is possible by using a railway simulator, Hamlet, which provides modules such as infrastructure, rolling stock, signaling, and electrical. Designers have the possibility to analyze several scenarios with different railway exploitation critical levels, analyze electrical degraded situations, and finally obtain an optimal Pareto Front, reaching a powerful methodology to help in the electrical dimensioning design.Index Terms-Multiobjective, neutral zone, overhead contact line, traction substations, zonal discretization. 1524-9050

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A sensitivity analysis has been performed to assess the influence of the inertial properties of railway vehicles on their dynamic behaviour. To do this, 216 dynamic simulations were performed modifying, one at a time, the masses, moments of inertia and heights of the centre of gravity of the carbody, the bogie and the wheelset. Three values were assigned to each parameter, corresponding to the percentiles 10, 50 and 90 of a data set stored in a database of railway vehicles. After processing the results of these simulations, the analysed parameters were sorted by increasing influence. It was also found which of these parameters could be estimated with a lesser degree of accuracy for future simulations without appreciably affecting the simulation results. In general terms, it was concluded that the most sensitive inertial properties are the mass and the vertical moment of inertia, and the least sensitive ones the longitudinal and lateral moments of inertia. This is an electronic version of an article published in Vehicle