Los documentales científicos como instrumentos de formación ciudadana para hacer frente a la situación de emergencia planetaria

El propósito de este trabajo es presentar los primeros resultados de una investigación en torno a la atención prestada por la educación científica al uso de los documentales en las clases de ciencias y, en particular, para dar a conocer la actual situación de emergencia planetaria y promover la implicación en la construcción de un futuro sostenible. Con ese objeto hemos estudiado la atención prestada por la educación científica a los documentales, mediante una búsqueda exhaustiva en veinte revistas de educación científica a lo largo de los diez últimos años. Así mismo, hemos analizado el contenido de 42 documentales científicos de amplia difusión. Los resultados muestran un escaso aprovechamiento de los documentales en la enseñanza, pero, a la vez, una notable potencialidad para incorporar las relaciones CTSA y, muy concretamente, la problemática de la sostenibilidad

Integral equation mei applied to three-dimensional arbitrary surfaces

The authors present a new formulation of the integral equation of the measured equation of invariance (MEI) as a confined field integral equation discretised by the method of moments, in which the use of numerically derived testing functions results in an approximately sparse linear system with storage memory requirements and a CPU time for computing the matrix coefficients proportional to the number of unknowns.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The young stellar population of NGC 4214 as observed with HST. I. Data and methods

We present the data and methods that we have used to perform a detailed UV-optical study of the nearby dwarf starburst galaxy NGC 4214 using multifilter HST/WFPC2+STIS photometry. We explain the process followed to obtain high-quality photometry and astrometry of the stellar and cluster populations of this galaxy. We describe the procedure used to transform magnitudes and colors into physical parameters using spectral energy distributions. The data show the existence of both young and old stellar populations that can be resolved at the distance of NGC 4214 (2.94 Mpc) and we perform a general description of those populations.Comment: 33 pages, 9 figures, and 8 table

Biosensors in Rehabilitation and Assistance Robotics

Robotic developments in the field of rehabilitation and assistance have seen a significant increase in the last few years [...

Migration of mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) from cardboard containers to dry food and prediction tool

This research aimed to study the migration of mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) from primary carton packages to dry foods, using 16 aromatic hydrocarbons as model substances, covering a wide range of molecular masses and chemical structures. Migration experiments were performed using modified polyphenylene oxide as a food simulant and couscous and polenta as dry foods. The migration tests were carried out to simulate storage at room temperature for long periods and in hot food containers as the worst scenario. Multivariate analysis algorithms were applied to correlate and group the migration of model substances, and a partial least squares regression (PLSR) model was built to predict the worst-case migration. The results showed strong correlations in the migration patterns of the model substances, based on their volatility, food matrix, migration time and temperature. Different behaviour between the migration of the most volatile and the heaviest model substances was observed

The ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury VII. The NGC 4214 Starburst and the Effects of Star Formation History on Dwarf Morphology

We present deep Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) optical observations obtained as part of the ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury (ANGST) as well as early release Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) ultra-violet and infrared observations of the nearby dwarf starbursting galaxy NGC 4214. Our data provide a detailed example of how covering such a broad range in wavelength provides a powerful tool for constraining the physical properties of stellar populations. The deepest data reach the ancient red clump at M_F814W -0.2. All of the optical data reach the main sequence turnoff for stars younger than ~300 Myr, and the blue He burning sequence for stars younger than 500 Myr. The full CMD-fitting analysis shows that all three fields in our data set are consistent with ~75% of the stellar mass being older than 8 Gyr, in spite of showing a wide range in star formation rates at the present day. Thus, our results suggest that the scale length of NGC 4214 has remained relatively constant for many Gyr. As previously noted by others, we also find the galaxy has recently ramped up production, consistent with its bright UV luminosity and its population of UV-bright massive stars. In the central field we find UV point sources with F336W magnitudes as bright as -9.9. These are as bright as stars with masses of at least 52-56 M_sun and ages near 4 Myr in stellar evolution models. Assuming a standard IMF, our CMD is well-fitted by an increase in star formation rate beginning 100 Myr ago. The stellar populations of this late-type dwarf are compared with those of NGC 404, an early-type dwarf that is also the most massive galaxy in its local environment. The late-type dwarf appears to have a similar high fraction of ancient stars, suggesting that these dominant galaxies may form at early epochs even if they have low total mass and very different present-day morphologies.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Stable cycling in quasi-linkage equilibrium:fluctuating dynamics under gene conversion and selection

Genetic systems with multiple loci can have complex dynamics. For example, mean fitness need not always increase and stable cycling is possible. Here, we study the dynamics of a genetic system inspired by the molecular biology of recognition-dependent double strand breaks and repair as it happens in recombination hotspots. The model shows slow-fast dynamics in which the system converges to the quasi-linkage equilibrium (QLE) manifold. On this manifold, sustained cycling is possible as the dynamics approach a heteroclinic cycle, in which allele frequencies alternate between near extinction and near fixation. We find a closed-form approximation for the QLE manifold and use it to simplify the model. For the simplified model, we can analytically calculate the stability of the heteroclinic cycle. In the discrete-time model the cycle is always stable; in a continuous-time approximation, the cycle is always unstable. This demonstrates that complex dynamics are possible under quasi-linkage equilibrium.Comment: 35 pages, 6 figure