Desarrollo de software para el aprendizaje y razonamiento probabilístico: el caso de SIMULAPROB

Se discute el desarrollo y puesta a prueba de un software para apoyar la enseñanza y aprendizaje de la probabilidad desde un enfoque frecuencial. El software ha sido desarrollado en lenguaje JAVA bajo principios constructivistas de aprendizaje y considerando sugerencias de la investigación en educación estadística. El software permite abordar conceptos como aleatoriedad, noción frecuencial de la probabilidad, espacio muestral, modelos de urna, distribuciones de probabilidad (binomial e hipergeométrica); además permite explorar resultados teóricos y empíricos y el efecto que el número de simulaciones tiene en dichos resultados

The size distribution, scaling properties and spatial organization of urban clusters: a global and regional percolation perspective

Human development has far-reaching impacts on the surface of the globe. The transformation of natural land cover occurs in different forms, and urban growth is one of the most eminent transformative processes. We analyze global land cover data and extract cities as defined by maximally connected urban clusters. The analysis of the city size distribution for all cities on the globe confirms Zipf’s law. Moreover, by investigating the percolation properties of the clustering of urban areas we assess the closeness to criticality for various countries. At the critical thresholds, the urban land cover of the countries undergoes a transition from separated clusters to a gigantic component on the country scale. We study the Zipf-exponents as a function of the closeness to percolation and find a systematic dependence, which could be the reason for deviating exponents reported in the literature. Moreover, we investigate the average size of the clusters as a function of the proximity to percolation and find country specific behavior. By relating the standard deviation and the average of cluster sizes—analogous to Taylor’s law—we suggest an alternative way to identify the percolation transition. We calculate spatial correlations of the urban land cover and find long-range correlations. Finally, by relating the areas of cities with population figures we address the global aspect of the allometry of cities, finding an exponent δ ≈ 0.85, i.e., large cities have lower densities

Enabling BOINC in infrastructure as a service cloud system

Volunteer or crowd computing is becoming increasingly popular for solving complex research problems from an increasingly diverse range of areas. The majority of these have been built using the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) platform, which provides a range of different services to manage all computation aspects of a project. The BOINC system is ideal in those cases where not only does the research community involved need low-cost access to massive computing resources but also where there is a significant public interest in the research being done. We discuss the way in which cloud services can help BOINC-based projects to deliver results in a fast, on demand manner. This is difficult to achieve using volunteers, and at the same time, using scalable cloud resources for short on demand projects can optimize the use of the available resources. We show how this design can be used as an efficient distributed computing platform within the cloud, and outline new approaches that could open up new possibilities in this field, using Climateprediction.net (http://www.climateprediction.net/) as a case studyS

An adaptive graph for volumetric mesh visualization

AbstractThis work presents an adaptive strategy in order to visualize volumetric data generated from numerical simulations of partial differential equations. The mesh is represented by a graph data structure. Moreover, the Autonomous Leaves Graph is extended to the three-dimensional case. This scheme intends to achieve better transversal cost than a treelike (e.g., bintree, quadtree and octree) space arrangement approach. Furthermore, this strategy intends to reduce the computational cost of constructing the discretization and the visualization of data. The total-ordering of the mesh volumes used in the discretization and the visualization processes is by the 3D Modified Hilbert space-filling Curve. To evaluate the performance, the strategy is applied on a Heat Conduction simulation problem using finite difference discretizations and the experimental results are discussed. Comparisons are made between numerical results obtained when using the Hilbert Curve and its modified version. In addition, experiments are shown when visualization is made from inside and outside the volume. The results expose the efficiency of using this strategy

Cloud Computing for Climate Modelling: Evaluation, Challenges and Benefits

Cloud computing is a mature technology that has already shown benefits for a wide range of academic research domains that, in turn, utilize a wide range of application design models. In this paper, we discuss the use of cloud computing as a tool to improve the range of resources available for climate science, presenting the evaluation of two different climate models. Each was customized in a different way to run in public cloud computing environments (hereafter cloud computing) provided by three different public vendors: Amazon, Google and Microsoft. The adaptations and procedures necessary to run the models in these environments are described. The computational performance and cost of each model within this new type of environment are discussed, and an assessment is given in qualitative terms. Finally, we discuss how cloud computing can be used for geoscientific modelling, including issues related to the allocation of resources by funding bodies. We also discuss problems related to computing security, reliability and scientific reproducibilityS

The size distribution, scaling properties and spatial organization of urban clusters: A global and regional percolation perspective

Human development has far-reaching impacts on the surface of the globe. The transformation of natural land cover occurs in different forms, and urban growth is one of the most eminent transformative processes. We analyze global land cover data and extract cities as defined by maximally connected urban clusters. The analysis of the city size distribution for all cities on the globe confirms Zipf’s law. Moreover, by investigating the percolation properties of the clustering of urban areas we assess the closeness to criticality for various countries. At the critical thresholds, the urban land cover of the countries undergoes a transition from separated clusters to a gigantic component on the country scale. We study the Zipf-exponents as a function of the closeness to percolation and find a systematic dependence, which could be the reason for deviating exponents reported in the literature. Moreover, we investigate the average size of the clusters as a function of the proximity to percolation and find country specific behavior. By relating the standard deviation and the average of cluster sizes—analogous to Taylor’s law—we suggest an alternative way to identify the percolation transition. We calculate spatial correlations of the urban land cover and find long-range correlations. Finally, by relating the areas of cities with population figures we address the global aspect of the allometry of cities, finding an exponent δ ≈ 0.85, i.e., large cities have lower densities

Diversity and conservation of fishes from karstic areas of the Jandaíra Formation in the Brazilian semiarid

Few studies have focused on non-troglomorphic fishes occurring in Brazilian caves, especially those in the Caatinga region. The present study is the first survey of fishes from karstic areas of the Jandaíra Formation in Rio Grande do Norte State, northeastern Brazil. This region is characterized by a high concentration of caves and a rich subterranean biodiversity, especially of troglobitic invertebrates, but remains considered a gap on the knowledge of the subterranean ichthyofauna in Brazil. Four field expeditions were carried out covering two dry and two rainy seasons, in 2018 and 2019, in 23 localities in small river basins along the western part of the Jandaíra Formation. A total of 829 fish specimens, none of them troglomorphic, was captured and identified as belonging to 25 species of 12 families and five orders. Amongst them, four species are endemic of the Mid-Northeastern Caatinga ecoregion, and two non-native species were recorded. Habitats were classified into three categories: superficial, associated to cave, and cave. Although no troglomorphic fish species was found in this study, we recorded 64.1% of the Apodi-Mossoró river ichthyofauna occurring in caves or associated to caves, corroborating the hypothesis that part of the ichthyofauna exploits these environments as a refuge during the dry season. In addition, we suggest conservation policies for the maintenance of subterranean and aquatic semiarid ecosystems in the Jandaira formation, which is currently under threat due to anthropogenic activities, such as mining and deforestation

Petrology and age of the Fazenda Lagoas Stock, Macururé Domain, Sergipano Orogenic System, NE-Brazil

O Stock Fazenda Lagoas (SFL), com 20 km2, tem idade de cristalização de 623 ± 4 Ma e é intrusivo nas rochas metassedimentares do Domínio Macururé (DM). O seu contato ao norte é afetado pela Zona de Cisalhamento Belo Monte-Jeremoabo (ZCBMJ), que imprime estrutura gnáissica às rochas desse stock. O SFL é essencialmente constituído de quartzo monzonitos, tendo monzogranitos e granodioritos subordinados. Os enclaves microgranulares são abundantes e correspondem a dioritos e gabros. As rochas apresentam dominantemente textura porfirítica e a mineralogia, deformação no estado sólido, a qual foi associada ao cisalhamento regional (kinks em plagioclásio e biotita, rotação de feldspatos e biotita, ribbon em quartzo). Os cristais de plagioclásio exibem zonações cíclicas normal e inversa, e o feldspato alcalino, zonação inversa. A composição do plagioclásio varia de oligoclásio a andesina nos monzonitos, e nos enclaves, de oligoclásio a labradorita. A composição da biotita marrom indica origem a partir de magma orogênico. Os anfibólios ígneos correspondem a pargasita e edenita, a barometria com alumínio total indicou pressões que variam entre 6,7 e 7,8 kbar (15‒25 km) para os monzonitos e entre 7,2 e 9,8 kbar (20‒30 km) para os enclaves. A geoquímica evidenciou afinidades shoshonítica e cálcio-alcalina de alto K para os magmas formadores do SFL. Os elementos-traço em diagramas multielementares apresentam anomalias negativas para Ta, Nb, Ti e P, e apontam que o SFL tenha se formado em ambiente colisional. Texturas e evolução geoquímica indicam cristalização fracionada, e misturas entre magmas félsico (monzonito) e máfico (gabróicos) foram importantes na formação das rochas do SFL.The Fazenda Lagoas Stock (SFL), has 20 km2 area and age of crystallization of 623 ± 4 Ma and is intrusive into the metasedimentary rocks of the Macururé Domain. The northern boundary of the SFL is affected by the Belo Monte-Jeremoabo Shear Zone (BMJSZ), which prints gneiss structure to the rocks in this stock. The SFL consists essentially of quartz monzonites, having subordinate monzogranites and granodiorites. The microgranular enclaves are abundant and correspond to diorite and gabbro. The rocks present predominantly porphyritic texture and the mineralogy presents solid state deformation, which was associated with regional shear (plagioclase and biotite kinks, feldspar and biotite rotation, quartz ribbon). Plagioclase crystals exhibit normal and inverse cyclic zonations and alkaline feldspar reverse zonation. Plagioclase composition varies from oligoclase to andesine in monzonites and enclaves varies from oligoclase to labradorite. The composition of brown biotite indicates origin from orogenic magma. Igneous amphiboles correspond to pargasite and edenite, total aluminum barometry indicated pressures ranging from 6.7 to 7.8 kbar (15‒25 km) for monzonites and between 7.2 to 9.8 kbar (20‒30 km) to the enclaves. The geochemistry showed high K shoshonitic and calcium alkaline affinities for the SFL forming magmas. The trace elements in multi-elemental diagrams show negative anomalies for Ta, Nb, Ti and P indicate that the SFL was formed in a collisional environment. Textures and geochemical evolution indicate fractional crystallization and mixing between felsic (monzonite) and mafic (gabbroic) magmas were important in the formation of the SFL rocks