Why European Entrepreneurs in the Water and Waste Management Sector Are Willing to Go beyond Environmental Legislation

Sustainability in the water sector in Europe is a major concern, and compliance with the current legislation alone does not seem to be enough to face major challenges like climate change or population growth and concentration. The greatest potential for improvement appears when companies decide to take a step forward and go beyond environmental legislation. This study focuses on the environmental responsibility (ER) of European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the water and waste management sector and analyzes the drivers that lead these firms to the adoption of more sustainable practices. Our results show that up to 40% of European SMEs within this industry display environmental responsibility. Market pull has a low incidence in encouraging ER, while values and the strategic decisions of entrepreneurs seem decisive. Policy makers should prioritize subsidies over fiscal incentives because they show greater potential to promote the adoption of environmental responsibility among these firms

Evolución de los géneros de opinión en la España democrática: de la transición a la sociedad de la información

Treball final de Grau en Periodisme. Codi: PE0932. Curs acadèmic 2013/2014El 6 de diciembre de 1978, fecha de ratificación de la nueva Constitución española, supuso uno de los días más relevantes de la corta historia de la nueva prensa del país. Tras múltiples años de represión e inestabilidad debido a la fuerte presión del régimen franquista, los periodistas al fin podían ejercer libremente su profesión refrendados por la carta magna. 32 años después de las primeras elecciones democráticas en la España posfranquista, la prensa generalista ha tenido que adaptarse rápidamente a una sociedad influida por la modernización tanto legislativa como tecnológica. A pesar de haber dejado atrás viejas sombras, problemas como las presiones de, la fragilidad económica o la concentración de medios mantienen su presencia y condicionan la labor profesional de los medios de información y, especialmente, pueden influir a la hora de gestionar la línea editorial del medio. Mediante entrevistas a periodistas, columnistas y expertos hemos indagado en la evolución temática, léxica y pragmática que ha debido hacer la prensa española para adaptar su mensaje en su género que teóricamente más libre, la opinión

Kilo-instruction processors: overcoming the memory wall

Historically, advances in integrated circuit technology have driven improvements in processor microarchitecture and led to todays microprocessors with sophisticated pipelines operating at very high clock frequencies. However, performance improvements achievable by high-frequency microprocessors have become seriously limited by main-memory access latencies because main-memory speeds have improved at a much slower pace than microprocessor speeds. Its crucial to deal with this performance disparity, commonly known as the memory wall, to enable future high-frequency microprocessors to achieve their performance potential. To overcome the memory wall, we propose kilo-instruction processors-superscalar processors that can maintain a thousand or more simultaneous in-flight instructions. Doing so means designing key hardware structures so that the processor can satisfy the high resource requirements without significantly decreasing processor efficiency or increasing energy consumption.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The luminescent quantum efficiency of Cr³⁺ ions in co-doped crystals of LiNb0<syb>3</sub> : ZnO determined by simultaneous multiple-wavelength photoacoustic and luminescence experiments

In this paper, the luminescent quantum efficiency of Cr³⁺ ions in co-doped crystals of LiNb03: ZnO: Cr³⁺ is determined by using a method based on simultaneous multiple-wavelength measurement of photoacoustic and luminescence signal after pulsed laser excitation. The quantum efficiency found in this lattice was (10 ±4)% . This result was compared with the value found from the study of the lifetime in terms of the temperature of the luminescent levels involved. In this last case, two non-equivalent crystal sites were found for Cr³⁺ ions, and two fluorescence quantum yields were determined. After the estimation of the concentration of each site by electron paramagnetic resonance experiments, the averaged fluorescence quantum yield value was (9 ± 2)% in agreement with the previous result.Facultad de Ciencias ExactasCentro de Investigaciones Óptica

The luminescent quantum efficiency of Cr³⁺ ions in co-doped crystals of LiNb0<syb>3</sub> : ZnO determined by simultaneous multiple-wavelength photoacoustic and luminescence experiments

In this paper, the luminescent quantum efficiency of Cr³⁺ ions in co-doped crystals of LiNb03: ZnO: Cr³⁺ is determined by using a method based on simultaneous multiple-wavelength measurement of photoacoustic and luminescence signal after pulsed laser excitation. The quantum efficiency found in this lattice was (10 ±4)% . This result was compared with the value found from the study of the lifetime in terms of the temperature of the luminescent levels involved. In this last case, two non-equivalent crystal sites were found for Cr³⁺ ions, and two fluorescence quantum yields were determined. After the estimation of the concentration of each site by electron paramagnetic resonance experiments, the averaged fluorescence quantum yield value was (9 ± 2)% in agreement with the previous result.Facultad de Ciencias ExactasCentro de Investigaciones Óptica

Casimir Force for Absorbing Media in an Open Quantum System Framework: Scalar Model

In this article we compute the Casimir force between two finite-width mirrors at finite temperature, working in a simplified model in 1+1 dimensions. The mirrors, considered as dissipative media, are modeled by a continuous set of harmonic oscillators which in turn are coupled to an external environment at thermal equilibrium. The calculation of the Casimir force is performed in the framework of the theory of quantum open systems. It is shown that the Casimir interaction has two different contributions: the usual radiation pressure from vacuum, which is obtained for ideal mirrors without dissipation or losses, and a Langevin force associated with the noise induced by the interaction between dielectric atoms in the slabs and the thermal bath. Both contributions to the Casimir force are needed in order to reproduce the analogous of Lifshitz formula in 1+1 dimensions. We also discuss the relation between the electromagnetic properties of the mirrors and the spectral density of the environmentComment: Minor changes, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

CoEDApplets: Colaborando en el desarrollo de Applets orientados a la enseñanza

Presentamos en este trabajo la herramienta CoEDApplets, una aplicación web orientada a la enseñanza/aprendizaje de la programación y de la algorítmica en las ingenierías. Tal y como su predecesora, EDApplets, está basada en la tecnología de Applets Java, y se orienta a la animación y visualización mediante trazas de algoritmos y estructuras de datos. Frente al carácter estático de su predecesora, CoEDApplets se presenta como un portal de tipo cooperativo en el que distintos profesionales de la enseñanza puedan incorporar dinámicamente Applets que persigan el mismo objetivo. El portal facilita, además, el proceso de internacionalización de los Applets, también de forma dinámica. Los/as colaboradores/as podrán contribuir no sólo con códigos sino con su traducción a diversos idiomas. De este modo se consigue que el proceso de cooperación trascienda más allá de las fronteras de paises que no hablan el mismo idioma. CoEDApplets introduce de este modo elementos de soporte a diversidad en el nuevo marco de enseñanza en el espacio europeo de educación superior, en el que se espera una alta movilidad de alumnado