A Comparison of Machine-Learning Methods to Select Socioeconomic Indicators in Cultural Landscapes

Cultural landscapes are regarded to be complex socioecological systems that originated as a result of the interaction between humanity and nature across time. Cultural landscapes present complex-system properties, including nonlinear dynamics among their components. There is a close relationship between socioeconomy and landscape in cultural landscapes, so that changes in the socioeconomic dynamic have an effect on the structure and functionality of the landscape. Several numerical analyses have been carried out to study this relationship, with linear regression models being widely used. However, cultural landscapes comprise a considerable amount of elements and processes, whose interactions might not be properly captured by a linear model. In recent years, machine-learning techniques have increasingly been applied to the field of ecology to solve regression tasks. These techniques provide sound methods and algorithms for dealing with complex systems under uncertainty. The term ‘machine learning’ includes a wide variety of methods to learn models from data. In this paper, we study the relationship between socioeconomy and cultural landscape (in Andalusia, Spain) at two different spatial scales aiming at comparing different regression models from a predictive-accuracy point of view, including model trees and neural or Bayesian networks

The Role of Cultural Landscapes in the Delivery of Provisioning Ecosystem Services in Protected Areas

The aim of this paper is to assess and highlight the significance of cultural landscapes in protected areas, considering both biodiversity and the delivery of provisioning ecosystem services. In order to do that, we analyzed 26 protected areas in Andalusia (Spain), all of them Natural or National Parks, regarding some of their ecosystem services (agriculture, livestock grazing, microclimate regulation, environmental education and tourism) and diversity of the four terrestrial vertebrate classes: amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. A cluster analysis was also run in order to group the 26 protected areas according to their dominant landscape. The results show that protected areas dominated by dehesa (a heterogeneous system containing different states of ecological maturity), or having strong presence of olive groves, present a larger area of delivery of provisioning ecosystem services, on average. These cultural landscapes play an essential role not only for biodiversity conservation but also as providers of provisioning ecosystem services

“Conecta NOW” : rompiendo la brecha digital en colectivos en riesgo de exclusión social mediante acciones de alfabetización digital

Conecta NOW es una iniciativa de la Fundación Esplai en Colaboración con Microsoft y varias AAPP., que tiene como objetivo la reducción de la brecha digital entre colectivos en riesgo de exclusión social, además cuenta con tres objetivos específicos, la mejora de la empleabilidad , la eliminación de fronteras físicas y mentales en el acceso a las TICs y la promoción de los jóvenes como un grupo comprometido y activo en acciones de mejora de las TICs y la promoción de una ciudadanía activa mediante la metodología de aprendizaje y servicio.Conecta Now is a Foundation Esplai initiative in cooperation with Microsoft and some Public Administrations. The goal of the project is the reduction of the digital gap with groups in risk of social exclusion, providing teaching in ICT skills. There are 4 specifics goals in the project, Improving employability on this target group, eliminate mental and physical barriers to use ICT and promoting youth as a group engaged and active in actions to improve the ICT access and the promotion of an active citizenship using service learning methodology

Analyzing Uncertainty in Complex Socio-Ecological Networks

Socio-ecological systems are recognized as complex adaptive systems whose multiple interactions might change as a response to external or internal changes. Due to its complexity, the behavior of the system is often uncertain. Bayesian networks provide a sound approach for handling complex domains endowed with uncertainty. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of the Bayesian network structure on the uncertainty of the model, expressed as the Shannon entropy. In particular, three strategies for model structure have been followed: naive Bayes (NB), tree augmented network (TAN) and network with unrestricted structure (GSS). Using these network structures, two experiments are carried out: (1) the impact of the Bayesian network structure on the entropy of the model is assessed and (2) the entropy of the posterior distribution of the class variable obtained from the different structures is compared. The results show that GSS constantly outperforms both NB and TAN when it comes to evaluating the uncertainty of the entire model. On the other hand, NB and TAN yielded lower entropy values of the posterior distribution of the class variable, which makes them preferable when the goal is to carry out predictions

Rpd3L and Hda1 histone deacetylases facilitate repair of broken forks by promoting sister chromatid cohesion

Genome stability involves accurate replication and DNA repair. Broken replication forks, such as those encountering a nick, lead to double strand breaks (DSBs), which are preferentially repaired by sister-chromatid recombination (SCR). To decipher the role of chromatin in eukaryotic DSB repair, here we analyze a collection of yeast chromatin-modifying mutants using a previously developed system for the molecular analysis of repair of replication-born DSBs by SCR based on a mini-HO site. We confirm the candidates through FLP-based systems based on a mutated version of the FLP flipase that causes nicks on either the leading or lagging DNA strands. We demonstrate that Rpd3L and Hda1 histone deacetylase (HDAC) complexes contribute to the repair of replication-born DSBs by facilitating cohesin loading, with no effect on other types of homology-dependent repair, thus preventing genome instability. We conclude that histone deacetylation favors general sister chromatid cohesion as a necessary step in SCR

Approximating optimization problems over convex functions

Many problems of theoretical and practical interest involve finding an optimum over a family of convex functions. For instance, finding the projection on the convex functions in $H^k(\Omega)$, and optimizing functionals arising from some problems in economics. In the continuous setting and assuming smoothness, the convexity constraints may be given locally by asking the Hessian matrix to be positive semidefinite, but in making discrete approximations two difficulties arise: the continuous solutions may be not smooth, and functions with positive semidefinite discrete Hessian need not be convex in a discrete sense. Previous work has concentrated on non-local descriptions of convexity, making the number of constraints to grow super-linearly with the number of nodes even in dimension 2, and these descriptions are very difficult to extend to higher dimensions. In this paper we propose a finite difference approximation using positive semidefinite programs and discrete Hessians, and prove convergence under very general conditions, even when the continuous solution is not smooth, working on any dimension, and requiring a linear number of constraints in the number of nodes. Using semidefinite programming codes, we show concrete examples of approximations to problems in two and three dimensions

Archisms in Liberal and Neoliberal Spain: On Death, Dictatorship, and Democracy

This dissertation traces the literary ideas and theoretical grounds for the failure of the promises of liberal and neoliberal democracy in contemporary Spain. I analyze the discourses produced on and around the turning points of the Spanish Enlightenment during the last years of the 18th Century, the Constitutions of 1812, 1931, and 1978, as well as the inception of Franco’s dictatorship in 1939. Through close readings of works such as the essays and reports by Melchor G. Jovellanos, the first series of the Episodios Nacionales by Pérez-Galdós, the Desastres de la guerra and the Pinturas negras by Goya, the Letters of Blanco-White, “Día de Difuntos” by Larra, the political discourses of Donoso Cortés and Cánovas del Castillo, Cabrera by Fernández-Santos, Volverás a Región by Juan Benet, and the City of Work by the independent filmmaker Guillermo García-Peydró. By comparing canonical and forgotten literary texts and artistic works, I explain why the so called ‘historical turns’, cultural views, constituent processes, and reënactments of power remain unsolved today. I think of these processes as “archisms,” from arché, which has two related meanings in ancient Greek: origin and rule (still embedded in “archa-ism” and “an-archism”). In combination, these two meanings suggest an arch-foundation of power, a commanding birthright that endures in different sovereign forms of the present: institutions, social structures, inherited knowledge and formations of thought. I make historical events an outrage to the present and make the present an outrage to past promises by juxtaposing works from different periods in order to contest the notion of lineal progress. My approach, while rigorously historical, is also a-chronological – meant to expose the disjointedness of liberal time and to locate the wounds that make the Spanish crisis particularly profound. My dissertation’s innovative focus on liberal and neoliberal times provides an untimely genealogy of democracy in Spain, thus bringing to light a necessary examination of the literary and cultural production in Spain since the late 18th Century, while reactivating the relevance of canonical texts. By showing how literature, film, history, and the visual arts are crucial to a philosophical and political understanding of our social life, this project also intervenes in debates about the human condition and the rethinking of non-egalitarian mechanisms of Western models of democracy.PHDRomance Languages & Literatures: SpanishUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137030/1/paligera_1.pd