A Service based Development Environment on Web 2.0 Platforms

Governments are investing on the IT adoption and promoting the socalled e-economies as a way to improve competitive advantages. One of the main government’s actions is to provide internet access to the most part of the population, people and organisations. Internet provides the required support for connecting organizations, people and geographically distributed developments teams. Software developments are tightly related to the availability of tools and platforms needed for products developments. Internet is becoming the most widely used platform. Software forges such as SourceForge provide an integrated tools environment gathering a set of tools that are suited for each development with a low cost. In this paper we propose an innovating approach based on Web2.0, services and a method engineering approach for software developments. This approach represents one of the possible usages of the internet of the future

Language and cultural awareness of a non-native ESP teacher

Introduction. The relation between culture and language is a central issue in foreign language teaching and research where the need to give cultural content the same value as language content and language skills has been stressed. However, conceptualization of teacher language awareness, by focusing largely on formal aspects of language, largely neglects culture as a component of teacher cognition. This paper expands the category of ESP-teacher language awareness suggesting the inclusion of cultural awareness as a separate component of teacher cognition. This concept extension actualizes ESP teaching in the situation shaped by unprecedented mobility and intercultural contacts. Materials and Methods. The historic-logical method was used to determine shortcomings of pedagogical experience and the need to teach culture in ESP. Grounded theory, as an inductive methodology, was utilized to generate conceptual expansion theoretically tied with research in medical and business communication as well as with data on population movement and international scientific cooperation. Results. We defined ESP-cultural knowledge as a system comprising the permanent (know-that) and temporary (know-of) cultural manifestations in a society as well as how they are manifested through language (know-how). That system practical representation is exemplified in medicine and business English discourse. The study expands the structure of ESP-TLA, claiming the focus on cultural awareness as part of ESP discourse which fosters cultural-response education. Discussion and Conclusion. Such claim is pertinent to practitioners involved in the tourism industry, health care, economics, and academic activities such as research and development. This paper is relevant for teachers of English for Specific purposes in the fields mentioned above as well as for researchers engaged in analyzing the problems and methods of teaching a foreign language. However, because of the multiple manifestations and complexity of student motivation to get ESP course, the paper acknowledges the difficulties in addressing cultural content salient to all students in class, an aspect meriting further research. © 2019 National Research Ogarev Mordovia State University. All rights reserved.This research was financially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Grant No. 17-29-09136/18 «Multilingualism in the era of post-literacy: Philosophical and cultural studies and methodological and pedagogical development of a multilingual education model»).Российский Фонд Фундаментальных Исследований (РФФИ): 17-29-09136/1

Evaluating the effect of age and area of residence in the metal and metalloid contents in human hair and urban topsoils

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Monitoring the levels of trace elements in hair can allow estimating the effects of the geographical location and also can provide a notion of the metal body burden. However, the use of human hair is controversial due to the different confounding factors that could affect the presence of trace elements in hair. As a result, a comprehensive monitoring study was performed in Alcalá de Henares, one of the major cities in the Madrid region, Spain. Trace elements have been monitored in urban topsoils and in human hair of two well-defined and healthy groups of population: children (6–9 years) and adolescents (13–16 years). The city was divided into four areas or zones with different characteristics to assess the possible effect of area of residence and age in the presence of Al, As, Be, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Pb, Sn, Ti, Tl and Zn in soils and hair. There is no current hypothesis that explains the possible effect of the area of monitoring in the distribution of Be, Cr, Ni, Sn and Ti found in these urban soils, maybe because urban soils receive high disturbance, and there are many factors involved. The presence of most of the trace elements monitored was significantly higher in the hair of the children population, except for Sn and Zn. This could be attributed mainly to dietary habits. Other factors influencing metal content in hair such as environmental factors would have had a minimal effect in the population groups here studied. Finally, none of the levels of trace elements studied in hair were significantly correlated with levels measured in the topsoils of public parks in Alcalá de Henares, with the exception of Pb in adolescent participants

The 2011 Lorca earthquake slip distribution controlled by groundwater crustal unloading

Earthquake initiation, propagation and arrest are influenced by fault frictional properties(1,2) and preseismic stress(3,4). Studies of triggered and induced seismicity(5-7) can provide unique insights into this influence. However, measurements of near-field, surface ground deformation(8,9) and pre-earthquake stress conditions necessary for such studies are rare. Here, we use geodetic data to determine surface deformation associated with the M-w 5.1 earthquake that occurred in Lorca, southeast Spain, on 11 May 2011. We use an elastic dislocation model to show that earthquake nucleation and the area of main fault slip occurred at very shallow depths of 2-4 km, on a rupture plane along the Alhama de Murcia Fault. Slip extended towards the surface, across fault segments with frictional properties that changed from unstable to stable. The area of fault slip correlates well with the pattern of positive Coulomb stress change that we calculate to result from the extraction of groundwater in a nearby basin aquifer. We therefore suggest that the distribution of shallow slip during the Lorca earthquake could be controlled by crustal unloading stresses at the upper frictional transition of the seismogenic layer, induced by groundwater extraction. Our results imply that anthropogenic activities could influence how and when earthquakes occur

The use of geographic information systems for the optimal location of biomass power plants in the Madrid Community (Spain)

This article has been extracted from the results of a thesis entitled “Potential bioelectricity production of the Madrid Community Agricultural Regions based on rye and triticale biomass.” The aim was, first, to quantify the potential of rye (Secale Cereale L.) and triticale ( Triticosecale Aestivum L.) biomass in each of the Madrid Community agricultural regions, and second, to locate the most suitable areas for the installation of power plants using biomass. At least 17,339.9 t d.m. of rye and triticale would be required to satisfy the biomass needs of a 2.2 MW power plant, (considering an efficiency of 21.5%, 8,000 expected operating hours/year and a biomass LCP of 4,060 kcal/kg for both crops), and 2,577 ha would be used (which represent 2.79% of the Madrid Community fallow dry land surface). Biomass yields that could be achieved in Madrid Community using 50% of the fallow dry land surface (46,150 ha representing 5.75% of the Community area), based on rye and triticale crops, are estimated at 84,855, 74,906, 70,109, 50,791, 13,481, and 943 t annually for the Campiña, Vegas, Sur Occidental, Área Metropolitana, Lozoya-Somosierra, and Guadarrama regions. The latter represents a bioelectricity potential of 10.77, 9.5, 8.9, 6.44, 1.71, and 0.12 MW, respectively