A Model-Driven Approach for Business Process Management

The Business Process Management is a common mechanism recommended by a high number of standards for the management of companies and organizations. In software companies this practice is every day more accepted and companies have to assume it, if they want to be competitive. However, the effective definition of these processes and mainly their maintenance and execution are not always easy tasks. This paper presents an approach based on the Model-Driven paradigm for Business Process Management in software companies. This solution offers a suitable mechanism that was implemented successfully in different companies with a tool case named NDTQ-Framework.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2010-20057-C03-02Junta de Andalucía TIC-578

RanBP2-Mediated SUMOylation Promotes Human DNA Polymerase Lambda Nuclear Localization and DNA Repair

Cellular DNA is under constant attack by a wide variety of agents, both endogenous and exogenous. To counteract DNA damage, human cells have a large collection of DNA repair factors. Among them, DNA polymerase lambda (Polλ) stands out for its versatility, as it participates in different DNA repair and damage tolerance pathways in which gap-filling DNA synthesis is required. In this work we show that human Polλ is conjugated with Small Ubiquitin-like MOdifier (SUMO) proteins both in vitro and in vivo, with Lys27 being the main target of this covalent modification. Polλ SUMOylation takes place in the nuclear pore complex and is mediated by the E3 ligase RanBP2. This post-translational modification promotes Polλ entry into the nucleus, which is required for its recruitment to DNA lesions and stimulated by DNA damage induction. Our work represents an advance in the knowledge of molecular pathways that regulate cellular localization of human Polλ, which are essential to be able to perform its functions during repair of nuclear DNA, and that might constitute an important point for the modulation of its activity in human cells

Signos neuromusculares anormales tras la anestesia con romifidina-propofol-halotano en dos algas

Dos galgas (ASA I, con edades de 1.5 y 8 años) incluídas en un estudio anestésico experimental, mostraron signos de una reacción neuromuscular epileptiforme con mioclonías, movimientos natatorios de las extremidades anteriores y opistótonos, durante el inicio de la recuperación anestésica en varios procedimientos anestésicos. Ninguna tenía antecedentes de epilepsia. Las dos fueron anestesiadas con los siguientes protocolos anestésicos: 1. Romifidina (ROM) Ilvl-Atropina (ATR)- Propofol (PRO)-Halotano (HAL), 2. ROM IV-ATRPRO-HAL. 3. Xilacina (XIL)-ATR-PRO-HAL, 4. Medetomidina (MED)-ATR-PRO-HAL y 5. ROMATR-Tiopental sódico (TIO)-HAL. Las perras no fueron sometidas a ninguna intervención quirúrgica. La anestesia se mantuvo durante 60 minutos en todos los casos. Las variables anestésicas y los parámetros sanguíneos estudiados se mantuvieron dentro de los rangos normales. La galga mayor mostró el cuadro descrito en los protocolos 1, 2 y 3 (más marcado en el 2), mientras que la más joven sólo los presentó en el 2, y con una menor intensidad en los signos clínicos. En todos los casos, éstos aparecieron de 2 a 5 minutos después de terminar la administración de halotano, y tras 15 minutos, y adoptar las pacientes el decúbito esternal, los signos cesaron. No fue necesario administrar ningún fármaco para aliviar el cuadro convulsivo. A partir de entonces, la recuperación fue normal y las pacientes no mostraron posteriormente síntomas nerviosos.Two female Greyhounds (ASA I, aged 1.5 and 8 years) showed signs of a neuromuscular epileptiforrn activity, with paddling, opisthotonus and shivering, during the anaesthetic recovery in some anaesthetic protocols. No epilepsy history was registered befare in any patient. The dogs were anaesthetized with the following procedures: 1. Romifidine (ROM) IMAtropine (ATR)-Propofol (PRO)-Halothane (HAL), 2. ROM IV-ATR-PRO-HAL. 3. Xylazine (XIL)-ATR-PROHAL, 4. Medetomidine (MED)-ATR-PRO-HAL y 5. ROM-ATR-Thiopentone (TIO)-HAL. The older Greyhound showed an epileptiforrn activity in the protocols 1, 2 and 3 (more intense in 2), however the younger one only exhibited these signs in the protocol 2. The older one suffered excitatory phenomena deeper than the other one. In all cases, signs began 2-5 minutes after the end of the halothane administration, and after 15 minutes, when the patients adopted the sternal recumbency the signs disappeared. Anaesthetic variables and haematological values were within normal limits. No drug was administered for treating the excitatory phenomena. The recovery was normal and the dogs did not exhibite nervous signs later

Diversity and abundance of weed seeds in cereal crop grain in Western Andalusia, South Spain

Se analizó la presencia de semillas de malas hierbas en muestras de la cosecha de cereal de 2013 correspondientes a 200 campos de las provincias de Huelva y Sevilla. Se identificaron 91 especies de las que 29 mostraron una frecuencia de presencia de al menos el 5%. La especie más frecuente (74%) y abundante fue “Lolium rigidum”. Las especies arvenses del género “Phalaris” también fueron muy frecuentes (66-32%). Especies con frecuencia superior al 20% fueron “Polygonum aviculare”, “Convolvulus arvensis”, “Chrysanthemum coronarium”, “Pulicaria paludosa” y “Centaurea diluta”. En comparación con estudios previos referidos al conjunto del área cerealista española, se observó una frecuencia similar de las especies dominantes “L. rigidum” y “P. aviculare” y una frecuencia muy superior de “Phalaris spp.” En sentido contrario, la frecuencia de especies segetales especialistas fue muy inferior.We examined the weed seeds present in crop grain samples from 2013 from across 200 cereal fields in Huelva and Seville provinces, Andalusia, South-western Spain. Ninety-one weed species were identified of which 29 species were present in at least 5% of samples. “Lolium rigidum” was the most frequent (74%) and abundant species. The weedy species of the genus “Phalaris” were also highly frequent (66-32%). “Polygonum aviculare”, “Convolvulus arvensis”, “Chrysanthemum coronarium”, “Pulicaria paludosa” and “Centaurea diluta” were detected in more than 20% of samples. Compared to available data for the whole cereal crop area in Spain, we found a similar frequency of the dominant weeds “L. rigidum” and “P. aviculare” but a much higher presence of “Phalaris” spp. In an opposite trend, the frequency of specialist segetal species was much lower

IberWQ: A GPU Accelerated Tool for 2D Water Quality Modeling in Rivers and Estuaries

Este artigo inclúese no número especial "Modelling Flow, Water Quality, and Sediment Transport Processes in Coastal, Estuarine, and Inland Waters"[Abstract] Numerical models are useful tools to analyze water quality by computing the concentration of physical, chemical and biological parameters. The present work introduces a two-dimensional depth-averaged model that computes the most relevant and frequent parameters used to evaluate water quality. High performance computing (HPC) techniques based on graphic processing unit (GPU) parallelization have been applied to improve the efficiency of the package, providing speed-ups of two orders of magnitude in a standard PC. Several test cases were analyzed to show the capabilities and efficiency of the model to evaluate the environmental status of rivers and non-stratified estuaries. IberWQ will be freely available through the package Iber.European Commission; INTERREG-POCTEP; 0034_RISC_ML_6_EXunta de Galicia; ED431C 2017/64-GRCXunta de Galicia; ED481A-2017/31

Zinc nitride thin films: Basic properties and applications

A. Redondo-Cubero, M. Gómez-Castaño, C. García Núñez, M. Domínguez, L. Vázquez, J. L. Pau , "Zinc nitride thin films: basic properties and applications", Oxide-based Materials and Devices VIII, Proc. SPIE 10105, 101051B (24 February 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2253044. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibitedProceedings of VIII Oxide-based Materials and Devices Conference (San Francisco, California, United States)Zinc nitride films can be deposited by radio frequency magnetron sputtering using a Zn target at substrate temperatures lower than 250°C. This low deposition temperature makes the material compatible with flexible substrates. The asgrown layers present a black color, polycrystalline structures, large conductivities, and large visible light absorption. Different studies have reported about the severe oxidation of the layers in ambient conditions. Different compositional, structural and optical characterization techniques have shown that the films turn into ZnO polycrystalline layers, showing visible transparency and semi-insulating properties after total transformation. The oxidation rate is fairly constant as a function of time and depends on environmental parameters such as relative humidity or temperature. Taking advantage of those properties, potential applications of zinc nitride films in environmental sensing have been studied in the recent years. This work reviews the state-of-the-art of the zinc nitride technology and the development of several devices such as humidity indicators, thin film (photo)transistors and sweat monitoring sensors.This research is supported by the MINECO (CTQ2014-53334-C2-2-R) and Comunidad de Madrid (NANOAVANSENS ref. S2013/MIT-3029). ARC acknowledges Ramón y Cajal program (under contract number RYC-2015-18047

Lump solitons in a higher-order nonlinear equation in 2+1 dimensions

We propose and examine an integrable system of nonlinear equations that generalizes the nonlinear Schrodinger equation to 2 + 1 dimensions. This integrable system of equations is a promising starting point to elaborate more accurate models in nonlinear optics and molecular systems within the continuum limit. The Lax pair for the system is derived after applying the singular manifold method. We also present an iterative procedure to construct the solutions from a seed solution. Solutions with one-, two-, and three-lump solitons are thoroughly discussed

Switching Costs in the European Postal Service. Are There Any Solutions?

[Abstract] This article examines the costs of switching that may exist in the European postal sector, where it is carried out an ambitious process of opening to competition since 1997. Inadequate regulation of the access to some elements of postal infrastructure or services within the scope of the universal postal service exists. This article proposes adaptations to ensure transparent and non-discriminatory access conditions to elements of postal infrastructure in line with the sectorial directives aimed at strengthening competition in the long term in the postal market. The proposed adaptations focus on services such as postcode systems, address databases, post office boxes, delivery boxes, re-direction and return to sender services. All of them can help reduce the switching cost and thus strengthen competition

An accelerated tool for flood modelling based on Iber

Este artigo inclúese no número especial "Selected Papers from the 1st International Electronic Conference on the Hydrological Cycle (ChyCle-2017)"[Abstract:] This paper presents Iber+, a new parallel code based on the numerical model Iber for two-dimensional (2D) flood inundation modelling. The new implementation, which is coded in C++ and takes advantage of the parallelization functionalities both on CPUs (central processing units) and GPUs (graphics processing units), was validated using different benchmark cases and compared, in terms of numerical output and computational efficiency, with other well-known hydraulic software packages. Depending on the complexity of the specific test case, the new parallel implementation can achieve speedups up to two orders of magnitude when compared with the standard version. The speedup is especially remarkable for the GPU parallelization that uses Nvidia CUDA (compute unified device architecture). The efficiency is as good as the one provided by some of the most popular hydraulic models. We also present the application of Iber+ to model an extreme flash flood that took place in the Spanish Pyrenees in October 2012. The new implementation was used to simulate 24 h of real time in roughly eight minutes of computing time, while the standard version needed more than 15 h. This huge improvement in computational efficiency opens up the possibility of using the code for real-time forecasting of flood events in early-warning systems, in order to help decision making under hazardous events that need a fast intervention to deploy countermeasures.Water JPI—WaterWorks Programme, project Improving Drought and Flood Early Warning, Forecasting and Mitigation, IMDROFLOOD; PCIN-2015-243European Commission; project RISC_ML 034_RISC_ML_6_EXunta de Galicia; ED431C 2017/64-GRCXunta de Galicia; ED481A-2017/314Xunta de Galicia; ED481B-2018/020European Commission; IMDROFLOOD PCIN-2015-24