La actitud hacia el bienestar animal en el ámbito educativo

La investigación que se presenta en esta tesis doctoral aborda un tema delicado pero subyacente en la sociedad: El bienestar de los animales. El concepto clásico de bienestar animal se limitaba a que los animales estuviesen físicamente sanos, bien alimentados y libres de agresiones físicas del ambiente, que recibieron la consideración de «las tres libertades». La nueva concepción de bienestar animal se basa en la capacidad de los animales para adaptarse con éxito a un ambiente dado y desarrollar todo su potencial fisiológico y etológico. Por tanto, a las tres primeras libertades de los animales ampliamente aceptadas se agregaron dos nuevas, las que se enuncian como libertad para expresar los comportamientos naturales de la especie, y que los animales estén libres de miedo o estrés.La recerca que es presenta en aquesta tesi doctoral aborda un tema delicat però subjacent en la societat: el benestar dels animals. El concepte clàssic de benestar animal es limitava al fet que els animals estiguessin físicament sans, ben alimentats i lliures d'agressions físiques de l'ambient, que van rebre la consideració de «les tres llibertats». La nova concepció de benestar animal es basa en la capacitat dels animals per adaptar-se amb èxit a un ambient donat i desenvolupar tot el seu potencial fisiològic i etològic. Per tant, a les tres primeres llibertats dels animals àmpliament acceptades es van agregar dues noves, les que s'enuncien com a llibertat per expressar els comportaments naturals de l'espècie, i que els animals estiguin lliures de por o estrès.The research presented in this thesis deals with a delicate but underlying theme in society: the welfare of animals. The classical concept of animal welfare merely that animals were physically healthy, well fed and free from physical attacks from the environment, receiving the consideration of "the three freedoms". The new concept of animal welfare is based on the ability of animals to adapt successfully to a given and realize their potential physiological and behavioral environment. Therefore, the first three freedoms widely animal accepted two new, those set as freedom to express natural behavior of the species, and that the animals are free from fear or stress were added

Scottish culture in the EFL classroom: a didactic proposal

Culture plays a significant role in our daily lives. Consequently, this should be worked at schools, more specifically in the EFL classroom since language and culture are closely interrelated. With this in mind, this Master’s Thesis presents a didactic proposal that aims to introduce Scottish culture in schools. The proposal covers various aspects of Scottish culture: stereotypes, language, history, emblematic places of the capital, food, and festivities. Thanks to this, students will gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of Scottish culture while learning English. This will lead to a final task that consists of a recreation of the Burns Night festivity in which students will have to present a poem or story that deals with the Scottish culture they have learnt in the sessions.La cultura desempeña un papel importante en nuestra vida cotidiana. Por ello, es necesario trabajarla en la escuela, y más concretamente en el aula de inglés como lengua extranjera (ILE), ya que lengua y cultura están estrechamente interrelacionadas. Teniendo esto en cuenta, este Trabajo de Fin de Máster presenta una propuesta didáctica que pretende introducir la cultura escocesa en los institutos. Esta abarca diversos aspectos de la cultura escocesa: estereotipos, lengua, historia, lugares emblemáticos de la capital, comida y festividades. Gracias a ello, los alumnos conocerán y apreciarán mejor la cultura escocesa mientras aprenden inglés. Todo ello conducirá a una tarea final que consistirá en una recreación de la festividad de la Noche de Burns en la que los alumnos tendrán que presentar un poema o relato que trate sobre la cultura escocesa que han aprendido en las sesiones.Departamento de Filología InglesaMáster en Profesor de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y Bachillerato, Formación Profesional y Enseñanzas de Idioma

How gamification influences employees to be more productive: a meta-analysis

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies ManagementIn an increasingly competitive environment, companies are seeking to find competitive advantages, through new ways of working. Gamification has showed some proofs that can have an impact in performance in enterprise information systems context. Especially after a pandemic context and during a global crisis, finding motivation and engagement, when people find themselves apart from each other, can be a true challenge. The purpose of this work is to analyse the gamification impact on employees’ performance and productivity, relating employees’ motivation and engagement with the gamification implementation in enterprises. A meta-analysis was performed from previous quantitative studies connected to gamification implementation in enterprises. A total of 20 articles from the last 7 years were used as input for the meta-analysis. Strong constructs were found: behavioural intention, engagement, gamification consent, intrinsic motivation, enjoyment, performance. A motivated and satisfied employee is more productive in the workplace, therefore the research carried out provides a model that supports its main purpose: gamification influences employees’ engagement and performance

Urban Environmental Quality : Morphology and image Case Study of Metropolitan Park Albarregas and It’s Environs (Mérida-Venezuela)

Se describe la metodología y se comentan los resultados de la aplicación de una encuesta para medir la percepción que tienen los habitantes en relación con la calidad ambiental de la imagen urbana, en un sector de la ciudad de Mérida, Venezuela.We describe the methodology and results of a survey conducted to measure the perception that the inhabitants have in relation to the environmental quality of the urban image, in a sector of the city of Mérida, Venezuela.Peer Reviewe

Plasmids in the aphid endosymbiont Buchnera aphidicola with the smallest genomes. A puzzling evolutionary story.

Buchnera aphidicola, the primary endosymbiont of aphids, has undergone important genomic and biochemical changes as an adaptation to intracellular life. The most important structural changes include a drastic genome reduction and the amplification of genes encoding key enzymes for the biosynthesis of amino acids by their translocation to plasmids. Molecular characterization through different aphid subfamilies has revealed that the genes involved in leucine and tryptophan biosynthesis show a variable fate, since they can be located on plasmids or on the chromosome in different lineages. This versatility contrasts with the genomic stasis found in three distantly related B. aphidicola strains already sequenced. We present the analysis of three B. aphidicola strains (BTg, BCt and BCc) belonging to aphids from different tribes of the subfamily Lachninae, that was estimated to harbour the bacteria with the smallest genomes. The presence of both leucine and tryptophan plasmids in BTg, a chimerical leucine-tryptophan plasmid in BCt, and only a leucine plasmid in BCc, indicates the existence of many recombination events in a recA minus bacterium. In addition, these B. aphidicola plasmids are the simplest described in this species, indicating that plasmids are also involved in the genome shrinkage process

Strategies of Domain Decomposition to Partition Mesh-Based Applications onto Computational Grids

In this paper, we evaluate strategies of domain decomposition in Grid environment to solve mesh-basedapplications. We compare the balanced distribution strategy with unbalanced distribution strategies. While the former is acommon strategy in homogenous computing environment (e.g. parallel computers), it presents some problems due tocommunication latency in Grid environments. Unbalanced decomposition strategies consist of assigning less workload toprocessors responsible for sending updates outside the host. The results obtained in Grid environments show that unbalanceddistributions strategies improve the expected execution time of mesh-based applications by up to 53%. However, this is not truewhen the number of processors devoted to communication exceeds the number of processors devoted to calculation in thehost. To solve this problem we propose a new unbalanced distribution strategy that improves the expected execution time up to43%. We analyze the influence of the communication patterns on execution times using the Dimemas simulator.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Ambiences: on-the-fly usage of available resources through personal devices

In smart spaces such as smart homes, computation is embedded everywhere: in toys, appliances, or the home’s infrastructure. Most of these devices provide a pool of available resources which the user can take advantage, interacting and creating a friendly environment. The inherent composability of these systems and other unique characteristics such as low-cost energy, simplicity in module programming, and even their small size, make them a suitable candidate for dynamic and adaptive ambient systems. This research work focuses on what is defined as an “ambience”, a space with a user-defined set of computational devices. A smart-home is modeled as a collection of ambiences, where every ambience is capable of providing a pool of available resources to the user. In turn, the user is supposed to carry one or several personal devices able to interact with the ambiences, taking advantage of his inherent mobility. In this way, the whole system can benefit from resources discovered in the spatial proximity. A software architecture is designed, which is based on the implementation of low-cost algorithms able to detect and update the system when changes in an ambience occur. Ambience middleware implementation works in a wide range of architectures and OSs, while showing a negligible overhead in the time to perform the basic output operations.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Ciencia-tecnología-sociedad : ¿Qué estamos haciendo en el ámbito de la investigación en educación en ciencias?

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo reflexionar sobre cómo se aborda la ciencia-tecnología-sociedad (CTS) en la investigación en Didáctica de Ciencias en un contexto iberoamericano. Con la intención de considerar distintas realidades se analizan los artículos publicados en revistas del área de Brasil y España, identificando qué parámetros de CTS son los relevantes en dichas publicaciones. Aunque en Brasil se observa una mayor preocupación por el desarrollo tecnológico, en ambos países se plantean los problemas de CTS centrándose principalmente en presentar el conocimiento científico al alumnado, tratando las implicaciones sociales de forma poco crítica y superficial. Estos resultados ponen de manifiesto la necesidad de introducir en las aulas la consideración de los propósitos del desarrollo científico-tecnológico y sus consecuencias sociales.Aquest treball té com a objectiu reflexionar sobre com s'aborda la ciència-tecnologia-societat (CTS) en la recerca en Didàctica de Ciències en un context iberoamericà. Amb la intenció de considerar diferents realitats s'analitzen els articles publicats en revistes de l'àrea de Brasil i Espanya, identificant què paràmetres de CTS són els rellevants en aquestes publicacions. Encara que a Brasil s'observa una major preocupació pel desenvolupament tecnològic, en tots dos països es plantegen els problemes de CTS centrant-se principalment a presentar el coneixement científic a l'alumnat, tractant les implicacions socials de forma poc crítica i superficial. Aquests resultats posen de manifest la necessitat d'introduir a les aules la consideració dels propòsits del desenvolupament científic-tecnològic i les seves conseqüències socials.This work has the aim to reflect on how science-technology-society (STS) is addressed in science education research in an Ibero-American context. In order to consider the different realities, papers published in Science Education journals, both in Brazil and Spain, are analysed, identifying which parameters of STS are relevant in these publications. Although more concern about technological development is observed in Brazil, in both countries STS problems focus on present the scientific knowledge to the students instead of considering their societal implications. These results highlight the need to introduce in the classroom the consideration of the purposes of scientific and technological development and their social consequences

Variación en las róticas del español y su implicación en la identificación del locutor

In the context of Judiciary or Forensic Linguistics, this paper shows the results of a study on rhotic consonants in prepausal position (in the spontaneous speech of central peninsular Spanish) in order to assess their forensic value for identifying speakers. The variables that have been analysed are the number of components and the acoustic features of the first and second components of the consonant, which correspond to the closure and opening phases, respectively. The results have shown some significant differences amongst speakers, which is why the rhotics are considered a useful segmental element in comparing speech samples on judiciary purposesEn el marco de la Lingüística Forense o Judicial, este artículo presenta los resultados de un estudio sobre las consonantes róticas en posición prepausal (en habla espontánea del español centro-peninsular) con el fin de evaluar su valor forense en la identificación de hablantes. Las variables que se han analizado son el número de componentes y las características acústicas del primer y segundo componentes de la consonante, que corresponden a la fase de cierre y de abertura, respectivamente. Los resultados han puesto de manifiesto algunas diferencias significativas entre hablantes, por lo que se concluye que las róticas pueden ser un elemento segmental útil en la comparación de muestras de habla con fines judiciale