Using movement modelling to improve the design and analysis of vantage point surveys in bird and wind energy studies

Wind energy, although mostly a clean and increasingly efficient energy source, is known to affect communities of flying vertebrates. Mortality by collision with turbines is one of the main impacts on birds and bats associated with wind energy. Soaring birds are particularly vulnerable due to their collision prone behaviours, low manoeuvrability, and their slow population recovery rates. The focus of this thesis is on the identification of areas that are intensively used by soaring birds in order to inform wind turbine placement and minimize collision risk. This thesis is particularly concerned with predictions of bird-use intensity that are based on flight trajectories mapped by observers from vantage points. This survey technique is standard practice during the environmental impact assessment of wind energy facilities, although its virtues and limitations are largely untested. Flight trajectories are counted, timed and mapped during these surveys. However, most assessments ignore the spatial information contained in the trajectories, and mappings are often reduced to metrics such as closest distance to a turbine or whether a particular habitat is visited. In this thesis, I use visual mappings of flight trajectories to estimate the long-term distribution of bird activity using: i) a kernel density estimator adapted to calculate the density of flight trajectories, and ii) modelling flights as being driven by a stochastic process under the influence of a potential field. Acknowledging the subjectivity introduced in the mapping of trajectories by field observers, I also study the discrepancy between mapped and true trajectories. Finally, I showcase the application of the various analytical techniques with a case study, in which I compare collision risk predictions with actual observed fatalities at a wind farm in South Africa. Kernel density estimation proved to be a good exploratory technique, and the estimator designed to estimate trajectory density outperformed other methods that ignore the temporal structure in trajectory data. Nevertheless, kernel methods are limited by its inability to predict bird activity outside areas observed from vantage points. Potential-based models allowed predictions in unobserved areas based on landscape characteristics, and showed promising results identifying areas of high collision risk. I found that the difference between true and mapped trajectories can be substantial, and it should be accounted for in any spatial analysis of vantage point observations. Although based on a single study case, the results are promising and show that the spatial distribution of collision risk predicted with the suite of methods presented in this thesis correlates well with the distribution of observed fatalities. The framework proposed to predict collision risk improves existing procedures in that it uses movement and spatial information contained in the observed trajectories. In addition, it accounts for all known sources of uncertainty throughout the modelling process

La Receptoría General del antiguo patrimonio de María de Luna. La gestión de la deuda censal en unos estados feudales del XV valenciano

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The use of communicative language teaching approach to improve english oral production skills

The present research work has as purpose to analyze the features and foundations of Communicative Language Teaching approach in young learners in English classrooms and to examine the effectiveness that this approach might have in oral production skills in Ecuadorian public high schools. Ecuador has been evidenced as a country with low English proficiency and this is mainly the response of several factors, such as the methodology that teachers use in class and the motivation students have in the foreign language

A Novel Multiobjective Formulation of the Robust Software Project Scheduling Problem

Chicano, F., Cervantes A., Luna F., & Recio G. (2012). A Novel Multiobjective Formulation of the Robust Software Project Scheduling Problem. (Di Chio, C., Agapitos A., Cagnoni S., Cotta C., de Vega F. Fernández, Di Caro G. A., et al., Ed.).Applications of Evolutionary Computation - EvoApplications 2012: EvoCOMNET, EvoCOMPLEX, EvoFIN, EvoGAMES, EvoHOT, EvoIASP, EvoNUM, EvoPAR, EvoRISK, EvoSTIM, and EvoSTOC, Málaga, Spain, April 11-13, 2012, Proceedings. 497–507.The Software Project Scheduling (SPS) problem refers to the distribution of tasks during a software project lifetime. Software development involves managing human resources and a total budget in an optimal way for a successful project which, in turn, demonstrates the importance of the SPS problem for software companies. This paper proposes a novel formulation for the SPS problem which takes into account actual issues such as the productivity of the employees at performing different tasks. The formulation also provides project managers with robust solutions arising from an analysis of the inaccuracies in task-cost estimations. An experimental study is presented which compares the resulting project plans and analyses the performance of four different well-know evolutionary algorithms over two sets of realistic instances representing the problem. Statistical parameters are also provided in order to help the project manager in the decision process.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and FEDER under contract TIN2008-06491-C04. Andalusian Government under contract P07-TIC-03044

The emergence of AdS(2) from quantum fluctuations

We have shown how the quantization of two-dimensional quantum gravity with an action which contains only a positive cosmological constant and boundary cosmological constants leads to the emergence of a spacetime which can be described as a constant negative curvature spacetime with superimposed quantum fluctuations.Comment: 4 pages. Talk given by W. Westra at the Eleventh Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity at the Freie U. Berlin, July 23 - 29, 200

Los periódicos oaxaqueños en la primera mitad del siglo XIX: del formalismo legal a la “creación del nuevo ciudadano” oaxaqueño, 1825-1860

"En los años que corren entre 1825 y 1860 nuestro país vivió un largo y sinuoso camino de estira y afloja entre las ideas del llamado “Antiguo Régimen” y los nuevos vientos republicanos liberales. Si bien se hablaba por diversos medios -donde las publicaciones periódicas, los folletos, los folletines jugaron un papel crucial- de formar a un ciudadano “nuevo”, que rompiera con las ataduras mentales del pasado, la cosa no fue simple y sencilla. Dentro de este contexto, un tema que ha sido poco abordado por la historiografía mexicana es el papel que los periódicos jugaron en esta tarea de educación cívica. En el mejor de los casos, este tipo de publicaciones ha sido utilizado como una fuente que abreva en el conocimiento del “formalismo legal” de una época determinada, pero pocos son los estudiosos que han utilizado con otra óptica esta riquísima fuente para el estudio de la cultura jurídico-política. Este artículo es un primer intento por analizar los periódicos oaxaqueños en el lapso que corre entre 1825 y 1860, tratando de relacionar su existencia con las coyunturas políticas que se vivían, así como con los intentos por renovar el contenido de este tipo de publicaciones en el ámbito local.

Importancia del uso de las plataformas virtuales en la formación superior para favorecer el cambio de actitud hacia las TIC: estudio de caso. Universidad del Magdalena, Colombia

El propósito de la investigación fue analizar el cambio actitudinal en los estudiantes de pregrado acerca del uso de la plataforma virtual como apoyo al desarrollo de un curso de formación disciplinar impartido en la modalidad presencial, considerando los aportes de Vygotsky (1988), Ausubel (1983), Pozo (2001), Coll (2007), Marqués (2001; 2003), Prensky (2001), Vilaseca y Meseguer (2000), entre otros. El estudio corresponde a un estudio de caso, enmarcado en el paradigma cualitativo, que utilizó como técnicas el grupo focal y dos encuestas que permitieron apreciar la opinión de los estudiantes del dominio las TIC y la actitud por el uso de la plataforma virtual como apoyo a la clase presencial o Aprendizaje Semipresencial. Contó con la participación de 35 estudiantes de Licenciatura en Preescolar en la Universidad del Magdalena en Santa Marta (Colombia) en el periodo académico 2012-I. Se evidenció que la interacción presencial no es el único canal comunicativo que garantiza aprendizajes efectivos y más allá del incremento de la habilidad tecnológica en los estudiantes, se contribuyó a elevar la autoestima, a mejorar el tiempo de dedicación en la realización de actividades complementarias a los encuentros presenciales. A los docentes les permite establecer las pautas para participar tanto en el entorno presencial como el virtual, la asignación de ejercicios y trabajos para presentar en cada espacio, los plazos de publicación de actividades y los criterios de evaluación.The purpose of this research was to analyze the attitudinal change in undergraduate students about their use of the virtual platform to support the development of a training course in the classroom, considering the contributions of Vygotsky (1988), Ausubel (1983), Pozo (2001), Coll (2007), Marqués (2001; 2003), Prensky (2001), Vilaseca y Meseguer (2000). Is a case study, framed within the qualitative paradigm, which used as techniques a focus group and two surveys designed to appreciate the opinions and attitudes from the students on the TIC’s in the use of a virtual platform to support the Blended Learning. The research involved 35 undergraduate students of Preschool education in the Universidad del Magdalena in Santa Marta (Colombia) on the first academic period of 2012. It was evident that the clasroom interaction is not the only way of communication that ensures an effective learning and increase the students abilities beyond the tecnological system, improving time commitment in the follow-up activities to face meetings. The research also allowed teachers to establish guidelines to participate not only in the classroom, but on a virtual environment, assignig exercises and assignments to be presented in each space, the due dates of every activity and the evaluation criteria

On Mass-Spring System Implementation in Cluster-Based MANETs for Natural Disaster Applications

Communication after natural disasters is paramount.Disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis leavethe affected area reachable only to wireless devices. In suchconditions, Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) play a criticalrole. The issue of MANETs communication backbone can beaddressed by self-organized cluster-based algorithms. The vir-tual backbone will maintain an efficient communication on theMANET, adapting to the dynamic topology changes thanks toits self-organized nature. Nevertheless, they do not take intoaccount the node’s mobility. If a node moves away from itsneighboring nodes, connectivity will be lost and thus, networksegmentation will occur. Therefore, it is fundamental to maintainthe connectivity and the communication between nodes whileexploring the area. In this paper, we propose the applicationof a mass-spring system on the Energy-Efficient Self-OrganizedAlgorithm (EESOA) for Disaster Area applications. Results willshow that our proposal performs best when deployment ofMANET’s nodes is dense while maintaining a connected network.ITESO, A.C

Impact and application of electron shuttles on the redox (bio)transformation of contaminants : a review

During the last two decades, extensive research has explored the catalytic effects of different organic molecules with redox mediating properties on the anaerobic (bio)transformation of a wide variety of organic and inorganic compounds. The accumulated evidence points at a major role of electron shuttles in the redox conversion of several distinct contaminants, both by chemical and biological mechanisms. Many microorganisms are capable of reducing redox mediators linked to the anaerobic oxidation of organic and inorganic substrates. Electron shuttles can also be chemically reduced by electron donors commonly found in anaerobic environments (e.g. sulfide and ferrous iron). Reduced electron shuttles can transfer electrons to several distinct electron-withdrawing compounds, such as azo dyes, polyhalogenated compounds, nitroaromatics and oxidized metalloids, among others. Moreover, reduced molecules with redox properties can support the microbial reduction of electron acceptors, such as nitrate, arsenate and perchlorate. The aim of this review paper is to summarize the results of reductive (bio)transformation processes catalyzed by electron shuttles and to indicate which aspects should be further investigated to enhance the applicability of redox mediators on the (bio)transformation of contaminants.F.P. van der Zee thanks the Portuguese Fundaicao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia for financial support (Grant SFRH/BPD/39086/2007). F. J. Cervantes greatly acknowledges a grant from Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (Grant SEP-CONACYT-C02-55045)