After the success of the first two editions of the Palaeontological Virtual Congress in 2019 (first PVC) and 2021 (second PVC; Crespo & Manzanares 2019; Crespo & Citton 2021), we have decided to try to replicate the success with a third meeting of the PVC (Fig. 1). The appearance of new applications and technological advances has played a crucial role in paving the way for enhanced avenues of effective scientific communication. This became even more pronounced from more than two years of challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to this crisis, online platforms gained more relevance and proved key to keeping up the drive for science communication and the dissemination of scientific results (Barral 2020).

This investigation characterises the time response and the transient turbulence dynamics undergone by rapidly decelerating turbulent pipe flows. A series of direct numerical simulations of decelerating flows between two steady Reynolds numbers were conducted for this purpose. The statistical analyses reveal that rapidly decelerating turbulent flows undergo four coherent, unambiguous transitional stages: inertial (stage I), a dramatic change of sign in the viscous force associated with the decay of the viscous shear stress at the wall together with a mild turbulence decay in the viscous sublayer; friction recovery (stage II), a recovery in viscous force and progressive decay in the turbulent inertia at the near-wall region; turbulence decay (stage III), a balanced decay in both turbulent inertia and viscous force at the near-wall and overlap regions; core relaxation (stage IV), slow turbulence decay at the core region. The FIK identity derived by Fukagata, Iwamoto and Kasagi (Phys. Fluids, vol. 14, 2002, L73–L76) was used to understand further how the flow dynamics influence the time response of the skin friction coefficient ($C_f$). The results show that although $C_f$ plateaus during the fourth stage, the turbulent contribution keeps decaying, undershoots and finally recovers to attain its final steady value. The time evolution of the azimuthal vorticity ($\omega _\theta$) flux reveals that as the flow is decelerated, a layer of negative $\omega _\theta$ is produced at the wall during the flow excursion. As time progresses, this negative vorticity propagates in the wall-normal direction, attenuating the pre-existing vorticity and producing a decay in the turbulence levels.

This study examines the precursors and consequences of rare backflow events at the wall using direct numerical simulation of turbulent pipe flow with a high spatiotemporal resolution. The results obtained from conditionally averaged fields reveal that the precursor of a backflow event is the asymmetric collision between a high- and a low-speed streak (LSS) associated with the sinuous mode of the streaks. As the collision occurs, a lifted shear layer with high local azimuthal enstrophy is formed at the trailing end of the LSS. Subsequently, a spanwise or an oblique vortex spontaneously arises. The dominant nonlinear mechanism by which this vortex is engendered is enstrophy intensification due to direct stretching of the lifted vorticity lines in the azimuthal direction. As time progresses, this vortex tilts and orientates towards the streamwise direction and, as its enstrophy increases, it induces the breakdown of the LSS located below it. Subsequently, this vortical structure advects as a quasi-streamwise vortex, as it tilts and stretches with time. As a result, it is shown that reverse flow events at the wall are the signature of the nonlinear mechanism of the self-sustaining process occurring at the near-wall region. Additionally, each backflow event has been tracked in space and time, showing that approximately 50 % of these events are followed by at least one additional vortex generation that gives rise to new backflow events. It is also found that up to a maximum of seven regenerations occur after a backflow event has appeared for the first time.

The transient dynamics of accelerating turbulent pipe flow has been examined using direct numerical simulation (DNS) data sets with a high spatiotemporal resolution, starting from low and moderate Reynolds numbers. The time-dependent evolution of the mean flow dynamics reveals that internal flows, during and after a rapid increase in the flow rate, experience four unambiguous transient stages: inertial, pre-transition, transition and core relaxation before they reach their final steady-state. The first stage is characterised by a rapid and substantial increment in the viscous forces within the viscous sublayer, together with the frozen behaviour of the existing turbulent eddies. The pre-transitional stage reveals a weak response of the turbulent inertia within the near-wall region, together with a rapid reduction in the viscous forces. At the third stage, termed transition, balanced growth in the magnitude of both the turbulent and the viscous forces within $y^{+0} \lesssim 50$ is observed. The final stage, referred to as core relaxation, shows a quasi-steady behaviour at $y^{+0} < 50$ and reveals the slow propagation of turbulence from the near-wall region into the wake region. A decomposition of the skin friction coefficient ($C_f$), using an FIK identity suitable for unsteady pipe flow, shows a progressive increment in the turbulent contribution during the core-relaxation period. Simultaneously, the unsteady contribution decreases proportionally, maintaining a plateau in $C_f$. The principal mechanism responsible for this slow regeneration in the wake is a temporal turbulence stratification at the inner region of the flow, together with a quiescent core, which maintains geometric coherence across extensive periods.

This work presents a detailed analysis of the flow structures relevant to extreme wall shear stress events for turbulent pipe flow direct numerical simulation data at a friction Reynolds number $\textit {Re}_{\tau} \approx 1000$. The results reveal that extreme positive wall-friction events are located below an intense sweep (Q4) event originated from a strong quasi-streamwise vortex at the buffer region. This vortex transports high streamwise momentum from the overlap and the outer layers towards the wall, giving rise to a high-speed streak within the inner region. This vortical structure also relates to regions with extreme wall-normal velocity. Consequently, the conditional fields of turbulence production and viscous dissipation exhibit peaks whose magnitudes are approximately 25 times higher than the ensemble mean quantities in the vicinity of the extreme positive events. An analysis of the turbulent inertia force reveals that the energetic quasi-streamwise vortex acts as an essential source of momentum at the near-wall region. Similarly, extremely rare backflow events are studied. An examination of the wall-normal vorticity and velocity vector fields shows an identifiable oblique vortical structure along with two other large-scale roll modes. These counter-rotating motions contribute to the formation of backflow events by transporting streamwise momentum from the inner to the outer region, creating a large-scale meandering low-speed streak. It is found that extreme events are clustered below large-scale structures of positive streamwise momentum that interact with near-wall low-speed streaks, related to regions densely populated with vortical structures. Finally, a three-dimensional model is proposed to conceptualise the flow dynamics associated with extreme events.

New routes in additive devices fabrication techniques and advances in printable materials are required to meet the ever increasing demands for low-cost and large-area flexible electronics. In particular, perovskite-based materials have gained an appeal due to their unique optoelectronics and ferroelectrics properties, which may replace p-n junction in semiconductor devices. Metal-organic methylammonium lead trihalide perovskite formulations have been extensively studied in the last few years as promising materials for use in printed electronics, which do not require high temperatures or vacuum environment, contrary to conventional semiconductor fabrication techniques. In this work, digital inkjet-printing in ambient atmosphere is proposed as a deposition pathway for the fabrication of perovskite active layers in photodetector and thin-film photovoltaic device architectures. The device architecture containing a printed perovskite active layer sandwiched between TiO2 and Spiro-OMeTAD as electron and hole transport layers, respectively, as well as layer-on-layer fabrication and responsivity spectra of the perovskite-based device are presented.

We present deep optical spectroscopy of seven planetary nebulae (PNe) in the substructures of M31, three in the Northern Spur and four associated with the Giant Stream. The spectra were obtained with the OSIRIS spectrograph on the 10.4 m GTC. The detection of the [O iii] λ4363 auroral line in all PNe of our sample enables reliable abundance determinations. Our targets have low N/O (<0.5) and He/H ratios, indicating that they are probably Type II PNe. The PNe in our sample have rather homogeneous oxygen abundances, with an average value of 8.56±0.10. Based on the abundances as well as the spatial and kinematical information of our targets, we speculate that the Northern Spur and the Giant Stream might have the same origin. We raise a hypothesis that the dwarf satellite M32 might be responsible for these two substructures. New observations have recently been made to assess this hypothesis.

We present studies using different observational techniques, along different frequencies, aiming to resolve and investigate jets, outflows, as well as compact and innermost regions of asymmetric planetary nebulae (PNe) and objects in transition to PN. All the information gathered allow us to explore the kinematics and other important properties of the structures that play a crucial role in the shaping of complex PNe morphologies, in particular, we explore the role of disks/tori as collimating engine of extreme axisymmetric PNe.

The aim of this work was to test the performance of a shrimp-tomato culture system (STCS) in an arid-semiarid region (Sonora, Mexico) and to evaluate the water quality variables and phytoplankton variation of shrimp effluent and that water returning from the tomato module culture. The field study was conducted using groundwater and consisted of three circular tanks that were used for shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) farming and were coupled to one culture module of tomato plants (Lycopersicon esculentum). The shrimp effluent was used to irrigate the tomato plants. The yield was 11.1±0.2 kg shrimp per tank (3.9±2.0 ton ha−1) and 33.3 kg tomatoes per 45 plants (36.1±2.3 ton ha−1). During the culture, the concentrations of nutrients were (mg L−1): total N-ammonia, <0.001–0.848; N-nitrite, <0.001–1.45; N-nitrate, 5.2–172.2; dissolved reactive-P, <0.005–0.343. A total of 35 taxa belonging to three different algal classes were observed: Chlorophyta (87 to 98%), Bacilliariophyta (2 to 9%) and Cyanophyta (0–3%). This STCS allowed us to harvest the equivalent of 3.9 ton ha−1 of shrimp and 36.3 ton ha−1 of tomatoes, with a water consumption of 2.1 m3 per kg harvested of both products.

Since the IUE satellite produced a vast collection of high-resolution UV spectra of the central stars of planetary nebulae (CSPNe), there has not been any further systematic study of the stellar winds of these stars. The high spectral resolution, sensitivity and large number of archival observations in the FUSE archive allow the study of the stellar winds of CSPNe in the far-UV domain where lines of species spanning a wide excitation range can be observed. We present here a preliminary analysis of the P Cygni profiles of a sample of ∼60 CSPNe observed by FUSE. P Cygni profiles providing evidence for fast stellar winds with velocities between 200 and 4300 km s−1 have been found in 40 CSPNe. In many cases, this is the first time that fast stellar winds have been reported for these planetary nebulae (PNe). A detailed study of these far-UV spectra is on-going.

We present new imaging data and archival multiwavelength observations of the little-studied emission nebula K 1-6 and its central star. Narrow-band images inHα (+[N II]) and [O III] taken with the Faulkes Telescope North reveal a stratified, asymmetric, elliptical nebula surrounding a central star which has the colours of a late G or early K-type subgiant or giant. GALEX ultraviolet images reveal a very hot subdwarf or white dwarf coincident in position with this star. The cooler, optically dominant star is strongly variable with a period of 21.312± 0.008 days, and is possibly a high-amplitude member of the RS CVn class, although an FK Com classification is also possible. Archival ROSAT data provide good evidence that the cool star has an active corona. We conclude that K 1-6 is most likely an old bona fide planetary nebula at a distance of ∼1.0 kpc, interacting with the interstellar medium, and containing a binary or ternary central star. The observations and data analyses reported in this paper were conducted in conjunction with Year 11 high school students as part of an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant science education project, denoted Space To Grow, conducted jointly by professional astronomers, educational researchers, teachers, and high-school students.