Tackling Interoperability in Composite Applications from an Enterprise Mash-up Perspective

The idea of a global mesh of enterprise composite applications is being impeded by the delay of next-generation interoperable mash-up platforms, providing intuitive human-guided resource interaction, reuse and composition. In this paper we revisit current mash-up platforms and analyze their major shortcomings with regard to the development of real composite applications. Then, we elaborate on a novel reference architecture for a mash-up platform called EzWeb/FAST. EzWeb/FAST facilitates the establishment of a user-centered mesh of interoperable resources that can be composed flexibly and easily to create and execute composite applications based on complex mashupable gadgets. The release of EzWeb/FAST will help enterprises to realize how SOA front-end innovations could make them more productive, responsive and, ultimately, more competitiv

Understanding the active sites of boron nitride for CWPO: An experimental and computational approach

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has been explored as a catalyst for degrading persistent organic pollutants in wastewater by Catalytic Wet Peroxide Oxidation (CWPO). Herein, the superior activity of the h-BN on the phenol degradation (model pollutant) compared to other metal-free catalysts, such as carbon-based ones, and the lower selectivity to CO encourage the potential application of h-BN catalysts in CWPO processes. Through a combined density functional theory calculations, experimental reactions and catalyst characterization approach, a com- prehensive study on the reaction mechanism has been conducted. According to this, only defected B atoms in the h-BN layer, protonated as B-(OH2)+, decompose the hydrogen peroxide into highly reactive hydroxyl radicals. The radical species diffuse towards inner h-BN regions and react with the phenol adsorbed by π-π interaction on the h-BN surface. Oxidation by-products cause carbonaceous deposits and progressive deactivation of the h-BN catalyst that can be directly regenerated by burning off in air.Comunidad de Madrid-S2018/EMT-4341Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación y Agencia Estatal de Investigación de España, y fondos FEDER de la Unión Europea (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE)-RTI2018-095052-B-I00Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación de España y EU-FEDER-PID2019-106871 GB-I00Junta de Andalucía-FEDER-US-1381410Comunidad de Madrid-PEJD-2018-PRE/AMB-901

The feeding of American plaice (Hippoglossoides platessoides), Redfish (Sebastes marinus) and Cod (Gadus morhua) in the Flemish Cap during July 1988

A randomly stratified bottom-trawl survey was realized in the Flemish Cap (NAFO Div. 3M) in July 1988. The stomach contents of three species were studied: 320 of American plaice (Hippoglossoides platessoides), 203 of redfish (Sebastes Marinus) and 468 of cod (Gadus morhua). The cod specimens were classified taking into account age groups; in the case of other species by length classes. The food items, the prey occurrence index and the diversity index were determined too. The Schoener overlap index was calculated to study the intraspecific diet overlap in cod and the interspecific diet overlap between the three species. The relation between predator size (cod) and prey size (redfish) was also studied

What burned the forest? Wildfires, climate change and human activity in the Mesolithic – Neolithic transition in SE Iberian Peninsula

Climate variability such as higher or lower temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, shifts in plant communities and other climate-related changes have particularly affected areas with Mediterranean-type climates. A multi-proxy analysis including pollen, sedimentary charcoal, mineralogy and Summed Probability Distributions (SPD) of archaeological 14C dates, allowed the reconstruction of landscape change, geomorphological evolution and fire history at the Laguna de Villena, in the southeastern Iberian Peninsula, during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition. The Villena paleolake was sensitive to Early Holocene and Middle Holocene regional climatic variability that included several arid phases (around 8.2 ka cal BP, 6.8 ka cal BP and 5.9 ka cal BP) according to geochemical and pollen data. During this period, landscape dynamics show the degradation of oak forests and expansion of pyrophytic pine forests and shrublands, as well as open spaces predominated by grasses. The charcoal record shows a decreasing trend of biomass burned from 8.5 ka cal BP onwards, although fire peaks occurred recurrently during the Early and Middle Holocene. The most intense phase of fire activity was experienced in the last millennia of the Early Holocene, with five fire episodes from 9.1 to 8.4 ka cal BP, coinciding with a phase of higher archaeological evidence in the area. A decrease in archaeological evidence coincides with a gap in fire episodes during the Early Holocene-Middle Holocene transition, suggesting an effect of the abrupt 8.2 ka cal BP event on human activity and on landscape dynamics. After 8.0 ka cal BP, lowerer biomass burned is explained by the configuration of a more open landscape due to the combination of climate (increasing aridity) and increasing human activities in the region. The mineralogical and palynological data highlighted the interaction between human activities, climate and fire dynamics. The sedimentary charcoal record evidenced how most of the fire peaks did not occur in the context of dry episodes, as often assumed, deriving on an anthropogenic explanation related to Early and Late Mesolithic burning practices during a phase of higher archaeological evidence in the Villena paleolake surroundings. Afterwards, combined agropastoral activities from the Early Neolithic onwards and increasing aridity during the Middle Holocene maintained the forest clearances, in the context of fire episodes characterised by decreased biomass burned. This study shows how Middle Holocene palaeoecological records reflect complex histories blending climate and anthropogenic processes that derived in major landscape changes explaining the origin of current landscapes.This research has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 683018) to JFLdP. Additional analyses on the pollen data sets have been produced in the context of the research project PID2020-113664RB-100 supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. JFLdP is additionally supported by the Plan Gen-T program (Ref. CIDEGENT-18/040) of the Generalitat Valenciana. CSG is currently supported by a Margarita Salas fellowship (ref. MARSALAS21-22) funded by the European Union-Next Generation EU, the Spanish Ministry of Universities and the University of Alicante. JR, IE and FB are members of the research group GAPS (2017 SGR 836). JR acknowledges postdoctoral fellowship support from the Spanish “Juan de la Cierva Incorporación (IJC2020)” program (MICINN, Spain). The Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana I Evolució Social (IPHES-CERCA) has received financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the “María de Maeztu'' program for Units of Excellence (CEX2019-000945-M). LS is granted by the ICREA Academia Program

Projecte COM@WEB: plataforma web d'aprenentatge intel•ligent de processament del Senyal i Comunicacions.

La plataforma d’e-learning: comweb.upc.edu és una eina multimèdia de suport a l’estudi, l’experimentació i l’adquisició de tècniques d’auto-aprenentatge. COM@WEB s’ofereix com a punt de trobada entre estudiants, professors i altres professionals relacionats amb el mon de les telecomunicacions i/o de la docència universitària. A la plataforma s’ha integrat el Laboratori Virtual per a Comunicacions Analògiques i Digitals (LaViCAD) com una eina interactiva de treball. Els usuaris principals als que va dirigit aquest projecte són els estudiants de telecomunicacions, molt especialment als que estan cursant assignatures de temàtiques de comunicacions i processament del senyal. Els continguts de la plataforma formen part d’una base de dades de recursos docents, entre els que hi ha: Documents de tipus text corresponents a part de la teoria, Exercicis d’aplicació resolts, Qüestionaris d’autoavaluació i simuladors de Java (aquestos últims corresponents a LaViCAD). Els diferents recursos s’ofereixen a través de la plataforma estructurats en diferents cursos i es relacionen entre sí gràcies a les seves metadades. Tots els recursos creats son de lliure accés i en resum la plataforma compleix les característiques de tenir una arquitectura oberta i extensible, facilitat d’ús per als usuaris: professors i estudiants i facilitat d’ampliació i de millora de la informació disponible de forma dinàmica

Pedagogical and scientific beliefs of future primary school teachers and university science education and science lecturers

11th Conference of the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) 2015, 31/08-04/09, 2015, in Helsinki (Findland).The purposes of this study are: a) to investigate the pedagogical and scientific beliefs of primary school teachers in training (group 1, N= 60), and b) compare said beliefs with those of university lecturers in science education (group 2, N = 33) and science (group 3, N = 98). We applied the Inventory of Educational and Scientific Beliefs, INPECIP (Porlán, 1989), consisting of 51 items divided into three categories: Image of Science, Learning of Science and Science Teaching. The results show that science education lecturers are more “constructivist” in all categories than both their students and their science department peers. In the “Learning of Science” and “Science Teaching” categories, we can also see that students are more “constructivist” than science lecturers. We conclude that in order to help future teachers modify their beliefs, collaboration with science lecturers is indispensable. Keywords: pedagogical beliefs, image of science, teacher trainers.III Contrato Programa entre el Vicerrectorado de Política Científica e Investigación de la Universidad de Granda, y la Facultad de Educación y Humanidades, Campus de Melilla: Proyecto: Entrenamiento pedagógico y didáctico del profesorado de la Facultad de Ciencias.Universidad de Granada. Departamento de Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales.Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra (CSIC-UGR)Grupo de Investigación de excelencia de la Junta de Andalucía, Grupo de Investigación en Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales y de la Sostenibilidad (HUM613)

Age and Chronodisruption in Mouse Heart: Effect of the NLRP3 Inflammasome and Melatonin Therapy

Age and age-dependent inflammation are two main risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. Aging can also affect clock gene-related impairments such as chronodisruption and has been linked to a decline in melatonin synthesis and aggravation of the NF- B/NLRP3 innate immune response known as inflammaging. The molecular drivers of these mechanisms remain unknown. This study investigated the impact of aging and NLRP3 expression on the cardiac circadian system, and the actions of melatonin as a potential therapy to restore daily rhythms by mitigating inflammaging. We analyzed the circadian expression and rhythmicity of clock genes in heart tissue of wild-type and NLRP3-knockout mice at 3, 12, and 24 months of age, with and without melatonin treatment. Our results support that aging, NLRP3 inflammasome, and melatonin affected the cardiac clock genes expression, except for Rev-erba, which was not influenced by genotype. Aging caused small phase changes in Clock, loss of rhythmicity in Per2 and Rora, and mesor dampening of Clock, Bmal1, and Per2. NLRP3 inflammasome influenced the acrophase of Clock, Per2, and Rora. Melatonin restored the acrophase and the rhythm of clock genes affected by age or NLRP3 activation. The administration of melatonin re-established murine cardiac homeostasis by reversing age-associated chronodisruption. Altogether, these results highlight new findings about the effects aging and NLRP3 inflammasome have on clock genes in cardiac tissue, pointing to continuous melatonin as a promising therapy to placate inflammaging and restore circadian rhythm in heart muscle. Additionally, light microscopy analysis showed age-related morphological impairments in cardiomyocytes, which were less severe in mice lacking NLRP3. Melatonin supplementation preserved the structure of cardiac muscle fibers in all experimental groups.Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Spain) (European Regional Development Fund/European Social Fund "Investing in your future") PI13-981 PI16-00519 PI19-01372 CB16-10-00238 CB16/10/00239Junta de Andalucia CTS-101Spanish Governmen

Does hunting management affect non-game bird species? A study from Spain and Portugal

Resumen del trabajo presentado a la International Conference on Hunting for Sustainability: "Ecology, Economics and Society", celebrada en Ciudad Real (España) del 27 al 29 de marzo de 2012.In Europe, hunting and its associated management has been performed for centuries and has potentially had profound effects on landscapes and on the biodiversity they hold. We investigated the effect of hunting management on non-target bird species. For doing so, we explored the relationship between hunting management and different groups of birds of conservation concern. We conducted the study with two different approximations. In a first step, we assessed whether there were a higher abundance or species richness in hunting estates with game management than in those without management. This survey was conducted in 24 game estates in South Portugal in spring and summer 2001-2002. Twelve of the hunting estates performed game management activities for small-game species while the other 12 corresponded to areas open to hunters but where no game management was undertaken. Groups of species considered in the study were passerines, steppe-birds, ground-nesting birds and endangered birds. We modelled the abundance and number of species of each bird group in each estate according to the game management regime (with/without game management) and to habitat variables with GLMMs and selected the models with lowest AICc. Our results show that all groups of species considered (except passerines) were more abundant or more diverse in hunting estates where game management was performed. In a second step, we aimed to know if our previous result was also relevant in another study area, as well as to disentangle which management activities could specifically affect bird diversity. We surveyed 54 small-game hunting estates in Central Spain with varying management intensity in spring and/or summer 2006-2010. Groups of species considered were raptors and steppe-birds. Information about game management was gathered through interviews with game managers. We modelled the abundance and species richness of each bird group in each estate according to habitat and game management variables (type of hunting regime, artificial feeding, predator control, number of keepers and partridge abundance) with GLMMs and selected the models with lowest AICc. Our results showed that management implemented for red-legged partridges (Alectoris rufa) did not seem to have neither positive nor negative effects on the abundance of their predators (raptors), but having good densities of partridges had a positive effect on the number of raptor species. However, some activities leading to improve red-legged partridges (in particular, supplementary feeding and predator control) had a positive effect on steppe-birds, which share habitat requirements with them. Therefore, we conclude that game management activities have positive effects on different groups of bird species in the Iberian Peninsula. All models are affected by habitat variables, so it is very important to maintain the habitat that allows those high densities and that has a positive effect on biodiversity.Peer Reviewe

Microtensile Bond Strength of CAD-CAM Restorative Dental Material Blocks to Resin Cement: An In Vitro Study

Introduction: Today’s dentistry frequently employs bonded partial restorations, which are usually fabricated in ceramic materials. In the last decade, hybrid materials have emerged that attempt to combine the properties of composites and ceramics. Objectives: To evaluate in vitro, by means of a microtensile test, the bond strength between CAD-CAM restorative materials and the cement recommended by their manufacturer. Material and Method: From blocks of CAD-CAM restorative material bonded to composite blocks (Filtek 500®), beams with a bonding area of approximately 1 mm2 were made and divided into four groups: EMAX (IPS e.max CAD® lithium disilicate), VE (VITA Enamic® polymer-infiltrated ceramic matrix), LUA (Lava Ultimate® nano-ceramic resin with sandblasting protocol) and LUS (Lava Ultimate® nano-ceramic resin with silica coating protocol). In each group, perimeter (external) or central (internal) beams were differentiated according to the position in the block. The samples were tested on the LMT 100® microtensile machine. Using optical microscopy, the fractures were categorized as adhesive or cohesive (of the restorative material or composite), and the data were analysed with parametric tests (ANOVA). Results: The LUS group had the highest results (42 ± 20 MPa), followed by the LUA group (38 ± 18 MPa). EMAX had a mean of 34 ± 16 MPa, and VE was the lowest in this study (30 ± 17 MPa). In all groups, the central beams performed better than the perimeter beams. Both EMAX and VE had the most adhesive fractures, while LUA and LUS had a predominance of cohesive fractures. Conclusions: Lava Ultimate® nanoceramic resin with the silica coating protocol obtains the best bond strength valuesOdontologí

Six Collective Challenges for Sustainability of Almería Greenhouse Horticulture

Globally, current food consumption and trade are placing unprecedented demand on agricultural systems and increasing pressure on natural resources, requiring tradeoffs between food security and environmental impacts especially given the tension between market-driven agriculture and agro-ecological goals. In order to illustrate the wicked social, economic and environmental challenges and processes to find transformative solutions, we focus on the largest concentration of greenhouses in the world located in the semi-arid coastal plain of South-east Spain. Almería family farming, predominantly cooperative, greenhouse intensive production, commenced after the 1960s and has resulted in very significant social and economic benefits for the region, while also having important negative environmental and biodiversity impacts, as well as creating new social challenges. The system currently finds itself in a crisis of diminishing economic benefits and increasing environmental and social dilemmas. Here, we present the outcomes of multi-actor, transdisciplinary research to review and provide collective insights for solutions-oriented research on the sustainability of Almeria’s agricultural sector. The multi-actor, transdisciplinary process implemented collectively, and supported by scientific literature, identified six fundamental challenges to transitioning to an agricultural model that aims to ameliorate risks and avoid a systemic collapse, whilst balancing a concern for profitability with sustainability: (1) Governance based on a culture of shared responsibility for sustainability, (2) Sustainable and efficient use of water, (3) Biodiversity conservation, (4) Implementing a circular economy plan, (5) Technology and knowledge transfer, and (6) Image and identity. We conclude that the multi-actor transdisciplinary approach successfully facilitated the creation of a culture of shared responsibility among public, private, academic, and civil society actors. Notwithstanding plural values, challenges and solutions identified by consensus point to a nascent acknowledgement of the strategic necessity to locate agricultural economic activity within social and environmental spheres.This paper demonstrates the need to establish transdisciplinary multi-actor work-schemes to continue collaboration and research for the transition to an agro-ecological model as a means to remain competitive and to create value