Digital Competences for Improving Digital Inclusion in E-Government Services: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review Protocol

The e-government requires citizens that have a certain level of digital skills. Contact restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of Public Administration in most countries and has increased the social digital divide. Therefore, the training of citizens in digital competences is one of the main challenges of the knowledge society. This mixed-methods systematic review protocol aims to synthesize quantitative and qualitative findings about conditioning factors of digital inclusion, in a multidimensional perspective, related with the education, healthcare and welfare sectors and the political actions involved to improve the digital competences of citizenship for allowing and enhancing their interactions with these online public services. The protocol has been written following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) guidelines. Nine databases including Web of Science, Scopus, Educational Resources Information Center Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA), ProQuest, MEDLINE, PubMed, SocINDEX and Cairn.info will be searched for peer-reviewed empirical studies published from 2011 or later. Grey literature and citation chaining will be undertaken. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods studies will be included. Data items will be extracted and coded in a standardized format. A convergent segregated approach to synthesis and integration will be used. The results will be of interest to educational policymakers who want to take into account citizens'' digital skills in the design of online services and lifelong learning programs

Study of Confinement and Catalysis Effects of the Reaction of Methylation of Benzene by Methanol in H-Beta and H-ZSM-5 Zeolites by Topological Analysis of Electron Density

In this work we studied the host-guest interactions between confined molecules and zeolites and their relationship with the energies involved in the reaction of methylation of benzene by methanol in H-ZSM-5 and H-Beta zeolites employing density functional theory (DFT) methods and the quantum theory of atoms in molecules. Results show that the strength of the interactions related to adsorption and coadsorption processes is higher in the catalyst with the larger cavity; however, the confinement effects are higher in the smaller zeolite, explaining, from an electronic viewpoint, the reason why the stabilization energy is higher in H-ZSM-5 than in H-Beta. The confinement effects of the catalyst on the confined species for methanol adsorption, benzene coadsorption, and the formed intermediates dominate this stabilization. For the transition state (TS), the stability of the TS is achieved due to the stabilizing effect of the surrounding zeolite framework on the formed carbocationic species (CH3+) which is higher in H-ZSM-5 than in H-Beta. In both TSs the methyl cation is multicoordinated forming the following H2O···CH3+···CB concerted bonds. It is demonstrated that, through the electron density analysis, the criteria can be defined to discriminate between interactions related to the confinement effects and the reaction itself (adsorption, coadsorption, and bond-breaking and bond-forming processes) and, thus, to discriminate the relative contributions of the degree of confinement to the reaction energies for two zeolite catalysts with different topologies.Fil: Zalazar, Maria Fernanda. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Química Básica y Aplicada del Nordeste Argentino. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Naturales y Agrimensura. Instituto de Química Básica y Aplicada del Nordeste Argentino; ArgentinaFil: Paredes, Esteban Nadal. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales y Agrimensura. Departamento de Química. Laboratorio de Estructura Molecular y Propiedades; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste; ArgentinaFil: Romero, Gonzalo David. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales y Agrimensura. Departamento de Química. Laboratorio de Estructura Molecular y Propiedades; ArgentinaFil: Cabral, Néstor Damián. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales y Agrimensura. Departamento de Química. Laboratorio de Estructura Molecular y Propiedades; ArgentinaFil: Peruchena, Nelida Maria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Química Básica y Aplicada del Nordeste Argentino. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Naturales y Agrimensura. Instituto de Química Básica y Aplicada del Nordeste Argentino; Argentin

Statistical complexity and connectivity relationship in cultured neural networks

We explore the interplay between the topological relevance of a neuron and its dynamical traces in experimental cultured neuronal networks. We monitor the growth and development of these networks to characterise the evolution of their connectivity. Then, we explore the structure-dynamics relationship by simulating a biophysically plausible dynamical model on top of each networks' nodes. In the weakly coupling regime, the statistical complexity of each single node dynamics is found to be anti-correlated with their degree centrality, with nodes of higher degree displaying lower complexity levels. Our results imply that it is possible to infer the degree distribution of the network connectivity only from individual dynamical measurements.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Covid key figures and new challenges in the horeca sector: the way towards a new supply-chain

The profound impact of the coronavirus pandemic on global tourism activity and the hospitality industry has rendered statistical approaches on tourism-demand forecasting obsolete. Furthermore, literature review shows the absence of studies on the supply chain in the HoReCa (hotel, restaurant, catering) sector from a sustainability perspective that also addresses economic and social aspects, and not only environmental ones. In this context, the objective of this article is to carry out a prospective analysis on how the changes in the behaviour of consumers during the pandemic and the uncertainties regarding the exit from the health emergency can give rise to social trends with a high impact on the HoReCa sector in the coming years and, specifically, how they will affect the HoReCa supply chain. In the absence of investigations due to the proximity of what has happened, public sources and reports of international relevance have been identified and analysed from the future studies and strategic and competitive intelligence disciplines. The HoReCa sector in Spain has been chosen as field of observation. This analysis draws the future of the HoReCa sector, describes the changes in customer behaviour regarding food and beverages, explains the changes in distribution chains, and reflects on the impact of potential scenarios on the sector. The confluence of all these changes and trends can even configure a new supply chain in the hospitality sector with the emergence of new actors and the increase of access routes to a new final customer for whom security prevails in all its dimensions: physical, emotional, economic, and digital

The Rural Digital Divide in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Europe-Recommendations from a Scoping Review

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the digital vulnerability of many citizens of the rural world. This article identifies and analyzes the proposals made by academic literature to overcome the digital divide in the European rural world for the five-year period 2016-2020. A scoping review has been carried out according to the PRISMA methodology in the two dimensions of the digital divide: access and connectivity, and use and exploitation. Online databases were used to identify scientific articles from which, after screening, 28 key documents were selected. The results update Salemink systematic review of articles published between 1991 and 2014 on digital and rural development in Western countries and it also intends to go beyond by extracting recommendations. A variety of political, social, educational, technical and economic issues has been exposed, with a common emphasis on the empowerment of rural populations. The findings provide actionable evidence and proposals to facilitate decision-making in current policy information to overcome rural digital divide. From them, seven recommendations that could have a wide and rapid impact to minimize the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic linked to the rural digital divide are synthesized. Three lines of action in the medium term are also proposed: the evaluation of national and regional public policies; the consideration of digital inclusion as a potential instrument to reduce rural depopulation; and the training in advanced digital skills to improve the social communication processes, considered key to promote empowerment and entrepreneurship

Automated database design for document stores with multicriteria optimization

Document stores have gained popularity among NoSQL systems mainly due to the semi-structured data storage structure and the enhanced query capabilities. The database design in document stores expands beyond the first normal form by encouraging de-normalization through nesting. This hinders the process, as the number of alternatives grows exponentially with multiple choices in nesting (including different levels) and referencing (including the direction of the reference). Due to this complexity, document store data design is mostly carried out in trial-and-error or ad-hoc rule-based approaches. However, the choices affect multiple, often conflicting, aspects such as query performance, storage space, and complexity of the documents. To overcome these issues, in this paper, we apply multicriteria optimization. Our approach is driven by a query workload and a set of optimization objectives. First, we formalize a canonical model to represent alternative designs and introduce an algebra of transformations that can systematically modify a design. Then, using these transformations, we implement a local search algorithm driven by a loss function that can propose near-optimal designs with high probability. Finally, we compare our prototype against an existing document store data design solution purely driven by query cost, where our proposed designs have better performance and are more compact with less redundancy.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This research has been funded by the European Commission through the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate "Information Technologies for Business Intelligence—Doctoral College" (IT4BI-DC). Sergi Nadal is partly supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, as well as the European Union—NextGenerationEU, under project FJC2020-045809-I / AEI/10.13039/501100011033.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Holocene environmental history and human impact in the Pyrenees

Pollen analysis of the sedimentary record of Lake Burg (Pyrenees, Spain) indicates a significant climatic oscillation during the Holocene, which, in addition to determining plant development, played a fundamental role in the development of anthropic activities and in human occupation of the High Pyrenees. This analysis has also been used to show how different degrees of human perturbation have repeatedly modified the environment. It is therefore not possible to study the current dynamics of the vegetation landscape without taking into account the combined effect of past human impacts responsible for its evolution. Consequently, when vegetation proxies, such as pollen or charcoal, are used to study climate change, it is also necessary to consider human influence as a distorting factor of the climate signal.L'anàlisi pol·línica del testimoni sedimentari de l'estany de Burg (Pirineus, Espanya) ha permès posar de manifest una important oscil·lació climàtica durant l'Holocè, que, a més de determinar el desenvolupament de la vegetació, ha tingut un rol fonamental en el desenvolupament de les activitats antròpiques i ha determinat l'ocupació humana de l'alta muntanya pirinenca. Aquesta anàlisi també ha servit per a comprovar com diferents pertorbacions humanes de grau divers han modificat el medi natural de manera recurrent i, per tant, no es pot estudiar la dinàmica actual del paisatge vegetal sense tenir en compte la suma d'impactes humans pretèrits responsables de la seva evolució. Així doncs, si per a estudiar el canvi climàtic es fan servir dades indirectes provinents de la vegetació, com ara el pol·len o els carbons vegetals, cal tenir en compte la influència humana com a factor distorsionador del senyal climàtic

La caja para endodoncia «Endostandard»

El tratamiento endodóncico requiere dos tipos de instrumental: general y específico. El primero de ellos (espejo, sondas, excavadoras, portadique, pinzas perforadoras, clamps y portaclamps, etc.) no presenta grandes dificultades en su conservación y uso, ya que existen en el mercado gran diversidad de recipientes metálicos -de preferencia los usados en cirugía- que pueden ser utilizados para este fin..

Holocene environmental history and human impact in the Pyrenees

L'anàlisi pol·línica del testimoni sedimentari de l'estany de Burg (Pirineus, Espanya) ha permès posar de manifest una important oscil·lació climàtica durant l'Holocè, que, a més de determinar el desenvolupament de la vegetació, ha tingut un rol fonamental en el desenvolupament de les activitats antròpiques i ha determinat l'ocupació humana de l'alta muntanya pirinenca. Aquesta anàlisi també ha servit per a comprovar com diferents pertorbacions humanes de grau divers han modificat el medi natural de manera recurrent i, per tant, no es pot estudiar la dinàmica actual del paisatge vegetal sense tenir en compte la suma d'impactes humans pretèrits responsables de la seva evolució. Així doncs, si per a estudiar el canvi climàtic es fan servir dades indirectes provinents de la vegetació, com ara el pol·len o els carbons vegetals, cal tenir en compte la influència humana com a factor distorsionador del senyal climàtic.Pollen analysis of the sedimentary record of Lake Burg (Pyrenees, Spain) indicates a significant climatic oscillation during the Holocene, which, in addition to determining plant development, played a fundamental role in the development of anthropic activities and in human occupation of the High Pyrenees. This analysis has also been used to show how different degrees of human perturbation have repeatedly modified the environment. It is therefore not possible to study the current dynamics of the vegetation landscape without taking into account the combined effect of past human impacts responsible for its evolution. Consequently, when vegetation proxies, such as pollen or charcoal, are used to study climate change, it is also necessary to consider human influence as a distorting factor of the climate signal