Detailed analysis of the lamination and the geochemical varibility of the speleothem Zerolin to study the paleoclimate of SE Spain

This work reports an exhaustive analysis of geochemistry and lamination in the paleoclimate study of Málaga using an actively stalagmite called Zerolín, collected in 2007 in the Cave of Ardales. U-Th dates indicate that the speleothem began forming 1000 years ago. The older portion of the stalagmite presents a very marked lamination with an alternation of white and porous layers and denser dark layers. Lamination is absent in the younger portion of the stalagmite, which features darker calcite and slower growth rates. In the laminated part of the speleothem, a comparison of layer counting and U/Th dates indicates that light and dark couplets are annual. A detailed age model was then produced for the laminated part of the stalagmite based on layer counting anchored to a precise U/Th age. For the non-laminated portion of the stalagmite, U/Th dates were used in Bchron software to produce an age model. Periods of higher growth rate coincide with a greater thickness of white layers. In nonlaminated sections, U/Th dates confirm important depositional gaps. In the geochemical analysis it was discovered that the relationship and behavior of trace elements and stable isotopes is different in the upper zone than in the lower annually laminated zone. Over annual laminae cycles, trace elements such as Sr and d13C covary and may be driven by prior calcite precipitation, however Mg is out of phase with Sr. In nonlaminated segments, the correlations are not as systematic. The trace element and d13C indicate two periods of drier conditions in the stalagmite (1100-1200/1600-1800 AD) .These coincide with periods when there was an increase in the frequency of prayers for rainfall in historical documents from the Toledo Cathedral (F.Dominguez Castro et.al 2008), suggesting that the stalagmite is reflecting regionally significant humidity changes.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

A proposal to encourage entrepreneurship and training in the future of journalism

La profesión periodística puede ofrecer una prestigiosa carrera a sus futuros graduados, pero la situación del sector es crítica y llena de cambios a los que nuevos periodistas deber responder con una mayor capacitación profesional, que les permita ofrecer una mayor calidad en el servicio al consumidor. Ante este escenario, la integración del emprendimiento en la formación de los periodistas resulta clave para que la innovación y la creatividad impulsen el autoempleo o nuevas iniciativas en las empresas periodísticas existentes. Para que esta formación sea más efectiva, en este estudio se expone la experiencia de una propuesta docente que emplea una metodología de aprendizaje de servicio, cuyos resultados corroboran su importancia didáctica para fomentar el espíritu emprendedor y la capacitación de los futuros periodistas.Journalism can offer a prestigious career development to their future graduates, but the current situation for this activity sector is critical and full of changes the new journalists must respond to. This response has to be based upon a better professional training able to provide a higher quality customer service. Considering this scenario, the integration of entrepreneurship in the journalist’s education is key to make innovation and creativity boost selfemployment and new initiatives in existing media companies. In order to contribute towards a more effective training in this area, a teaching proposal based on the methodology of service learning is shown. Our results support the importance of education to encourage entrepreneurship and its associated skills in future journalists

Obtención de fármacos antitumorales a partir de organismos de origen marino : Jaspamida, un péptido procedente de la esponja Jaspis sp.

El cáncer es la segunda causa de mortalidad en Europa y Estados Unidos. Aunque el índice de supervivencia ha mejorado en los últimos años, muchas de las variantes de esta enfermedad aún no tienen cura, por lo que es necesario el descubrimiento y desarrollo de nuevos agentes terapéuticos para combatirla. En la actualidad existe un creciente interés en la búsqueda de moléculas de potencial actividad procedentes del mar, ya que la gran diversidad química y biológica del medio marino es un amplio recurso para la búsqueda de nuevos fármacos antitumorales. El hecho de que el número de fármacos de origen marino descubiertos vaya en aumento se debe a la producción de metabolitos secundarios por parte de los organismos, los cuales han demostrado tener gran valor como agentes citotóxicos. Entre los distintos grupos taxonómicos marinos destaca el de las esponjas (filo Porifera), en el que se han centrado la mayoría de los estudios hasta la actualidad, por su elevada producción de metabolitos secundarios. En el presente estudio se describe el proceso de aislamiento y purificación mediante técnicas cromatográficas, valoración de actividad antitumoral y elucidación estructural mediante resonancia magnética nuclear de la jaspamida a partir de una muestra de Jaspis sp. tomada en Tomori. Son muchos los estudios que avalan el potencial antitumoral de la jaspamida en numerosas líneas celulares de cáncer. El proceso se llevó a cabo en el Departamento de Química de Productos Naturales de PharmaMar, compañía farmacéutica líder en el descubrimiento de tratamientos de origen marino contra el cánce

On the Feasibility of 5G Slice Resource Allocation With Spectral Efficiency: A Probabilistic Characterization

An important concern that 5G networks face is supporting a wide range of services and use cases with heterogeneous requirements. Radio access network (RAN) slices, understood as isolated virtual networks that share a common infrastructure, are a possible answer to this very demanding scenario and enable virtual operators to provide differentiated services over independent logical entities. This article addresses the feasibility of forming 5G slices, answering the question of whether the available capacity (resources) is sufficient to satisfy slice requirements. As spectral efficiency is one of the key metrics in 5G networks, we introduce the minislot-based slicing allocation (MISA) model, a novel 5G slice resource allocation approach that combines the utilization of both complete slots (or physical resource blocks) and mini-slots with the adequate physical layer design and service requirement constraints. We advocate for a probabilistic characterization that allows to estimate feasibility and characterize the behavior of the constraints, while an exhaustive search is very computationally demanding and the methods to check feasibility provide no information on the constraints. In such a characterization, the concept of phase transition allows for the identification of a clear frontier between the feasible and infeasible regions. Our method relies on an adaptation of the Wang-Landau algorithm to determine the existence of, at least, one solution to the problem. The conducted simulations show a significant improvement in spectral efficiency and feasibility of the MISA approach compared to the slot-based formulation, the identification of the phase transition, and valuable results to characterize the satisfiability of the constraints.The work of J. J. Escudero-Garzás was supported in part by the Spanish National Project TERESA-ADA (MINECO/AEI/FEDER, UE) under Grant TEC2017-90093-C3-2-R, and in part by the National Spectrum Consortium, USA, under Project NSC-16-0140

Obtención de fármacos antitumorales a partir de organismos de origen marino : Jaspamida, un péptido procedente de la esponja Jaspis sp.

El cáncer es la segunda causa de mortalidad en Europa y Estados Unidos. Aunque el índice de supervivencia ha mejorado en los últimos años, muchas de las variantes de esta enfermedad aún no tienen cura, por lo que es necesario el descubrimiento y desarrollo de nuevos agentes terapéuticos para combatirla. En la actualidad existe un creciente interés en la búsqueda de moléculas de potencial actividad procedentes del mar, ya que la gran diversidad química y biológica del medio marino es un amplio recurso para la búsqueda de nuevos fármacos antitumorales. El hecho de que el número de fármacos de origen marino descubiertos vaya en aumento se debe a la producción de metabolitos secundarios por parte de los organismos, los cuales han demostrado tener gran valor como agentes citotóxicos. Entre los distintos grupos taxonómicos marinos destaca el de las esponjas (filo Porifera), en el que se han centrado la mayoría de los estudios hasta la actualidad, por su elevada producción de metabolitos secundarios. En el presente estudio se describe el proceso de aislamiento y purificación mediante técnicas cromatográficas, valoración de actividad antitumoral y elucidación estructural mediante resonancia magnética nuclear de la jaspamida a partir de una muestra de Jaspis sp. tomada en Tomori. Son muchos los estudios que avalan el potencial antitumoral de la jaspamida en numerosas líneas celulares de cáncer. El proceso se llevó a cabo en el Departamento de Química de Productos Naturales de PharmaMar, compañía farmacéutica líder en el descubrimiento de tratamientos de origen marino contra el cánce

An energy-efficient adaptive modulation suitable for wireless sensor networks with SER and throughput constraints

We consider the problem of minimizing transmission energy in wireless sensor networks by taking into account that every sensor may require a different bit rate and reliability according to its particular application. We propose a cross-layer approach to tackle such a minimization in centralized networks for the total transmission energy consumption of the network: in the physical layer, for each sensor the sink estimates the channel gain and adaptively selects a modulation scheme; in the MAC layer, each sensor is correspondingly assigned a number of time slots. The modulation level and the number of allocated time slots for every sensor are constrained to attain their applications bit rates in a global energy-efficient manner. The signal-to-noise ratio gap approximation is used in our exposition in order to jointly handle required bit rates, transmission energies, and symbol error rates.This work has been partially funded by CRUISE NoE (IST-4-027738), MAMBO2 (CCG06-UC3M/TIC-0698) and MACAWI (TEC- 2005-07477-C02-02) projects.Publicad

On the Economic Significance of Stock Market Prediction and the No Free Lunch Theorem

Forecasting of stock market returns is a challenging research activity that is now expanding with the availability of new data sources, markets, financial instruments, and algorithms. At its core, the predictability of prices still raises important questions. Here, we discuss the economic significance of the prediction accuracy. To develop this question, we collect the daily series prices of almost half of the publicly traded companies around the world over a period of ten years and formulate some trading strategies based on their prediction. Proper visualization of these data together with the use of the No Free Lunch theoretical framework gives some unexpected results that show how the a priori less accurate algorithms and inefficient strategies can offer better results than the a priori best alternatives in some particular subsets of data that have a clear interpretation in terms of economic sectors and regions.This work was supported in part by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid under Strategic Action 2013/00199/002

Oxidative Stress in Cystic Fibrosis

Airway infection leads to progressive damage of the lungs in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Oxidative stress has been implicated as a causative factor in the aetiology of that process. Supplementation with antioxidant micronutrients (vitamin E, vitamin C, ß-carotene and selenium), docosahexaenoic acid or glutathione might therefore be helpful in maintaining an adequate redox balance. Current literature suggests a relationship between oxidative status and lung function. In this chapter we will summarize the main pathways of oxidative stress, focusing on results of new antioxidant treatments

Offline speaker segmentation using genetic algorithms and mutual information

We present an evolutionary approach to speaker segmentation, an activity that is especially important prior to speaker recognition and audio content analysis tasks. Our approach consists of a genetic algorithm (GA), which encodes possible segmentations of an audio record, and a measure of mutual information between the audio data and possible segmentations, which is used as fitness function for the GA. We introduce a compact encoding of the problem into the GA which reduces the length of the GA individuals and improves the GA convergence properties. Our algorithm has been tested on the segmentation of real audio data, and its performance has been compared with several existing algorithms for speaker segmentation, obtaining very good results in all test problems.This work was supported in part by the Universidad de Alcalá under Project UAH PI2005/078