88 research outputs found

    Linking climate, annual growth and competition in a Mediterranean forest: Pinus pinea in the Spanish Northern Plateau

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    Climate, competition and site conditions are the main drivers controlling annual secondary growth in tree species. These factors do no act independently on tree growth, but by means of interactions, resulting in mediated interactive effects. For example, the stress gradient hypothesis postulates alleviated interspecific competition under limiting spatial (site) or temporal (climate) resources. According to this, models predicting annual growth and yield for a given forest should consider these issues in their formulation. In this study, we present a modelling approach based on using data from permanent plots and dendrochronological analysis in order to describe annual tree growth in pure, even-aged stands of Pinus pinea L. in the Spanish Northern Plateau, a highly limiting environment due to its Mediterranean continental climate. Our method is based on identifying the different sources of variability by means of a multilevel linear mixed model, and thereby identifying the potential covariates explaining observed variability at the different spatiotemporal scales. Our results indicate that site related factors such as site index or dominant height exert a greater influence on annual secondary growth than size-symmetric competition. In addition, we found that the controlling influence of water stress is greater than that of temperatures on tree growth. Furthermore, our results allow evidence to be identified for the stress gradient hypothesis in temporal intraspecific interactions, since trees exposed to a higher degree of competition tend to grow more than expected in dry periods. In contrast, the effect of competition on growth, on average, tends to be aggravated at very poor sites. Finally, our modelling approach allows us to conduct growth and yield simulations under different climate scenarios at different spatial scales, providing results which point to significant decreases in timber and cone production under the more severe scenarios, which can be alleviated through more intensive silviculture.This work has been carried out under the financial and functional framework of the National Projects RTA-2013-00011.C2.1, PCIN-2014-138 INFORMED, AGL-2017-83828-C2.1 and the PROPINEA agreement between INIA, ITACYL and Deputation of Valladolid. Authors wish to thank Forest Service of Valladolid for their permanent support with the inventory and maintenance of the experimental trials

    Enhanced tools for predicting annual stone pine (Pinus pinea L.) cone production at tree and forest scale in Inner Spain

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    Aim of the study: To present a new spatiotemporal model for Pinus pinea L. annual cone production with validity for Spanish Northen Plateau and Central Range regions. The new model aims to deal with detected deficiencies in previous models: temporal shortage, overestimation of cone production on recent years, incompatibility with data from National Forest Inventory, difficulty for upscaling and ignorance of the inhibitory process due to resource depletion.Area of study: Spanish Northern Plateau and Central Range regions, covering an area where stone pine occupies more than 90,000 haMaterial and methods: Fitting data set include 190 plots and more than 1000 trees were cone production has been annually collected from 1996 to 2014. Models were fitted independently for each region, by means of zero-inflated log normal techniques. Validation of the models was carried out over the annual series of cone production at forest scale.Results: The spatial and temporal factors influencing cone production are similar in both regions, thus the main regional differences in cone yield are related with differences in the phenological timing, the intensity of the influent factors and forest intrinsic conditions. A significant inhibition of floral induction by resource depletion was detected and included into the model. Upscaling the model results in accurate prediction at forest scale. Research highlights: [1] The new model for annual cone production surpass the detected deficiencies of previous models, accurately predicting recent decay in cone production; [2] Regional differences in cone production are due to phenological and seasonal climatic differences rather than to between provenances genetic differencesKeywords: zero-inflated models; pine nut; conelet losses; Leptoglossus occidentalis; forest upscaling.

    Innovation projects associated to the competence of innovation, creativity and entrepeneurship in the Universitat Politècnica de València

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    [EN] This paper describes the Innovation and educational improvement project developed in the Universitat Politècnica de Valencia, oriented to the competence of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. These projects have been developed by a team of lecturers from different fields of knowledge. The first project was related to the definition of rubrics for the evaluation of the competence of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, and the second one oriented to the definition of learning objects for this competence. Learning outcomes were identified in the first project and a rubric was designed to measure the level of mastery of these learning outcomes for bachelor degree and master. Once defined the results that must be achieved, in the second project, was conducted the review of the learning objects as the means through which the learning outcomes can be achieved. Identifying the definition, classification, metadatas, repositories and methodologies associated with them were proposed. In the current project, the objective is the design of activities to accompaniment the learning objects, which will be developed in the classroom with the purpose of promoting the acquisition of the learning outcomes associated with the competence under review. This aspect is widely demanded by the teachers, which do not have proposals to develop in their subjects. The project will be applied and validated on two subjects of the school of computer science engineering and two subject of the school of Industrial Engineering in the Universitat Politècnica de Valencia.This research has been carried out under the project of innovation and educational improvement (PIME/A15) 'DAICE – Design of activities for the Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship Competence’ funded by the Universitat Politècnica de València, the School of Computer Science and the School of Industrial Engineering.Alemany Díaz, MDM.; Cuenca, L.; Boza, A.; Fernández-Diego, M.; Ruiz Font, L.; Alarcón Valero, F.; Gordo Monzó, ML. (2016). Innovation projects associated to the competence of innovation, creativity and entrepeneurship in the Universitat Politècnica de València. INTED proceedings (Online). 2903-2907. doi:10.21125/inted.2016.1657S2903290

    Extension of the 6-3-5 technique for incorporating creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship competences in higher education

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    [EN] This article present the extended technique 6-3-5 for generating ideas. It has been called extended because it has been expanded to include issues related to innovation and entrepreneurship. In that way it can be applied to learning transversal competence of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. This competence correspond to one of the transversal competences identified by the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia.This research has been carried out under the project of innovation and educational improvement (PIME/A15) 'DAICE – Design of activities for the Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship Competence’ funded by the Universitat Politècnica de València, the School of Computer Science and the School of Industrial Engineering.Cuenca, L.; Boza, A.; Gordo Monzó, ML.; Fernández-Diego, M.; Ruiz Font, L.; Alarcón Valero, F.; Alemany Díaz, MDM. (2016). Extension of the 6-3-5 technique for incorporating creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship competences in higher education. ICERI Proceedings. 79-83. doi:10.21125/iceri.2016.1015S798

    LEARNING OBJECT. DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION

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    [EN] The current trend in higher education includes competencies in the curricula. This integration can be done through the competency-based learning. The competence is acquired through various learning objects to be achieved. In this paper different dimensions to define a learning object (LO) and different classifications associated to them have been proposed. An analysis and synthesis of the results obtained have been presented.Alarcón Valero, F.; Alemany Díaz, MDM.; Boza, A.; Cuenca, L.; Gordo Monzó, ML.; Fernández-Diego, M.; Ruiz Font, L. (2015). LEARNING OBJECT. DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION. EDULEARN Proceedings (Internet). 4479-4488. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/95287S4479448

    Metadata, repository and methodology in learning objects

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    Many universities in different countries are redesigning their degree and master programmes on the basis of new academic and professional profiles incorporating a number of competences. One competence can be acquired through several learning objects. A wide variety of learning repositories that provide resources for education in the form of learning objects can be found. These resources are normally stored in learning object repositories where they are catalogued with metadata facilitating retrieval by end users. The aim of this paper is to describe the elements associated to learning objects: metadata, repositories and their related methodologies.This research has been carried out under the project of innovation and educational improvement (PIME/2014/A21) “OAICE: Learning Objects for the Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship Competence” funded by the Universitat Politècnica de València and the School of Computer Science.Fernández Diego, M.; Gordo Monzó, ML.; Boza García, A.; Cuenca, L.; Ruiz Font, L.; Alemany Díaz, MDM.; Alarcón Valero, F. (2015). Metadata, repository and methodology in learning objects. En EDULEARN15: 7th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies. Barcelona, Spain. July 6-8, 2015. IATED. 4755-4761. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/56975S4755476

    Innovation project to validate and select items for assessing transversal competencies in higher education

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    [EN] The educational improvement innovation project is focused on determining how to evaluate any competence and which are their main related items that should be used for that purpose. Currently, the selection of items is usually performed by groups of experts. However, two main problems related to this type of selection arise in this case: on the one hand, the selection resulting from different groups of experts may be not the same or similar enough, since it is based on the experience and knowledge of each member. On the other hand, the coefficients or weights a priori assigned to each item on any competence invalidate any a posteriori analysis on its statistical significance and the "real" weight on this competence. To mitigate the above drawbacks, this work presents a methodology able to select, from an objective point of view, the items related to a specific competence, from a set of potentially related ones; furthermore the weights associated to the items are determined. This is carried out by applying a multivariate statistical projection method such as Partial Least Squares (PLS), embedded in a cross-validation process. The paper presents how to preprocess the data, analyze it and obtain the items and their weights to be used for the evaluation of a specific competence.Prats-Montalbán, JM.; Alarcón Valero, F.; Alemany Díaz, MDM.; Boza, A.; Gordo Monzó, ML.; Fernández-Diego, M.; Ruiz Font, L.... (2016). Innovation project to validate and select items for assessing transversal competencies in higher education. ICERI Proceedings. 61-68. doi:10.21125/iceri.2016.1012S616
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