Cost-Effectiveness of Water Conservation Measures: A Multi-level Analysis with Policy Implications

Groundwater in Spain, as in other arid or semiarid countries worldwide, has been intensely used for the expansion of irrigated agriculture. This booming development has induced a remarkable socioeconomic development in many rural areas but has produced far-reaching environmental problems. In the Spanish Western La Mancha Aquifer, the excessive, and sometimes illegal, water abstraction for irrigation agriculture has resulted in the Aquifer’s overexploitation and has been responsible of the degradation of the associated wetlands “Tablas de Daimiel”, an internationally reputed, Ramsarnominated aquatic ecosystem. To undertake this analysis, a mathematical programming model has been developed to simulate farmers’ behaviour and their responses to different water policy scenarios. Specifically, the policy simulations selected are: alternative water pricing schemes (uniform volumetric and block-rate water tariffs), water use quota systems and water rights market. Results show that controlling illegal water mining is a necessary condition but it is not sufficient to recover the aquifer. Consequently, other measures will be necessary for an effective water management in this area. Among these, the block-rate water pricing scheme seems the most cost-effective system to reach the goal of aquifer sustainability but will entail important income losses in several farms. Therefore, we cannot conclude that a unique water conservation policy instrument will be the best overall solution for all types of holdings that will respond to efficiency as well as to equity considerations. It seems reasonable to make a combination of the tools proposed, even including additional measures that promote an environmental protection and develop sustainable agricultural systems.Environmental degradation, water policies, cost-effectiveness analysis, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

El origen mesencefálico del procesamiento predictivo en la audición y cómo la dopamina modula tempranamente la percepción de los sonidos inesperados

[EN] The predictive processing framework comprises neurobiologically-informed models of cortical function. These models consist of hierarchical neural networks arranged in several levels of processing. Higher-order levels develop expectations that try to predict and inhibit the input from lower-order levels. In turn, lower-order levels signal prediction errors to higher levels when their expectations about incoming input are not met. The main aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that predictive processing in the auditory system does not begin at the level of the cerebral cortex, but as deep as in the midbrain. Auditory oddball paradigms, in combination with no-repetition controls, were presented to anesthetized rats and awake mice while performing extracellular recordings in the inferior colliculus, in order to find traces of prediction error signaling that could not be accounted for by sheer stimulus-specific adaptation. In addition, dopaminergic agonists and antagonists were applied by means of microiontophoresis in order to test how D2-like receptors mediate the modulation of surprise responses in the neurons of the cortex of the inferior colliculus. Results confirmed that auditory midbrain neurons generate genuine prediction error signals, which expected precision is encoded by dopaminergic projections from the subparafascicular nucleus of the thalamus to the cortex of the inferior colliculus. Hence, the inferior colliculus is the first station capable of implementing predictive processing in the ascending auditory pathway.[ES]¿Por qué algunos sonidos nos sorprenden y atrapan nuestra percepción mientras que otros nos pasan desapercibidos? La neurociencia cognitiva moderna ha perseguido la respuesta a esta pregunta durante al menos medio siglo, abordando la cuestión desde una óptica predominantemente corticocéntrica. Tras 4 años de intenso análisis científico y diversas publicaciones en la materia (Carbajal & Malmierca, 2018a, 2020, 2018b; Casado-Román, Carbajal, et al., 2020; Malmierca, Carbajal & Escera, 2019; Parras et al., 2017; Pérez-González et al., 2020; Valdés-Baizabal, Carbajal, et al., 2020), esta tesis aspira a cambiar la visión establecida acerca de cómo el cerebro identifica la novedad en lo que oímos. Para ello, habremos de apartar el foco de la corteza cerebral para colocarlo sobre los núcleos subcorticales, cuya contribución es sistemáticamente subestimada. Concretamente, este trabajo explorará la función de los colículos inferiores (IC) del mesencéfalo, un par de protuberancias situada en la parte dorsal alta del tronco encefálico, cuyo rol ha sido tradicionalmente reducido a la de mero relé o centro organizador de reflejos. Además, esta tesis involucra a la dopamina en ese proceso que confiere la cualidad de ‘sorprendente’ a determinadas percepciones auditivas, lo cual contribuirá a expandir la interpretación clásica de la función dopaminérgica, siempre descrita en términos hedónicos de placer y recompensa. Todas estas aspiraciones serán sustanciadas bajo la noción neokantiana del procesamiento predictivo (Friston, 2005; Rao & Ballard, 1999), un marco teórico nacido de la teoría cibernética (Ashby, 1960) que entiende el cerebro como una máquina de Helmholtz (Dayan et al., 1995), movida por la necesidad de generar la representación más precisa posible del mundo exterior por medio de inferencia bayesiana (Clark, 2016; Friston et al., 2006; Hohwy, 2013

Fisheries in Chile and a proposal for national regulations

From the sixties up to the present, Chile\u27s fishing activities are become one of the most important economical sectors of the country. Through these pages, a perspective of the availability of living resources at sea in our economic exclusive zone is given, highlighting the social and economical impact of fisheries in the national context. The principal goal of this study is to propose national safety regulations covering not only new fishing vessels over 24m in length, as Torremolinos does, but also the whole national fishing fleet. Towards the achievement of this goal, the study complements and adds to the provisions of Torremolinos Convention\u27s technical details through interpretations and appendices. The result is a legal text with regulations applicable to new and existing fishing vessels and boats under and over 24 m in length. The proposal of national regulations does not cover Chapters IX and X, as the subjects of radio communications and navigation are outside the scope of the author\u27s competence. Nor does it cover protection of the environment and training and certification of skippers and crew, which are covered within other current regulations in the country

Synthesis of enantiomeric polyhydroxyalkylpyrrolidines from 1,3-dipolar cycloadducts. Evaluation as inhibitors of a β-galactofuranosidase

Enantiomeric 2,3,4-tris(hydroxyalkyl)-5-phenylpyrrolidines have been synthesized from the major cycloadducts obtained by the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of sugar enones with azomethine ylides derived from natural amino acids. Reduction of the ketone carbonyl group of the cycloadducts, which possess a basic structure of bicyclic 6-(menthyloxy)hexahydropyrano[4,3-c]pyrrol-7(6H)one, afforded a number of pyrrolidine-based bicyclic systems. A sequence of reactions, which involved hydrolysis of the menthyloxy substituent, reduction, N-protection, and degradative oxidation, afforded varied pyrrolidine structures having diverse configurations and patterns of substitution; in particular, polyhydroxylated derivatives have been obtained. The unprotected products were isolated as pyrrolidinium trifluoroacetates. Because of the furanose-like nature of the target trihydroxyalkyl pyrrolidines, these molecules have been evaluated as inhibitors of the β-galactofuranosidase from Penicillium fellutanum. The compounds showed practically no inhibitory activity for concentration of pyrrolidines in the range of 0.1–1.6 mM.Fil: Oliveira Udry, Guillermo Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono; ArgentinaFil: Repetto, Evangelina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono; ArgentinaFil: Vega, Daniel Roberto. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Constituyentes. Gerencia de Investigación y Aplicaciones; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Ciencia y Tecnología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Varela, Oscar Jose. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono; Argentin

A ROS-Based Open Tool for Controlling an Educational Mobile Robot

Commercial educational robots provide an accessible entry point into the world of robotics. However, their programming is often limited to specific platforms, which can make it challenging to acquire the skills necessary for industry and research. In this study, we introduce an open-access tool developed using C++ and Arduino IDE that enables us to manage a commercial mobile robot through the Robot Operating System (ROS) middleware. This provides programmers with the ability to work in a powerful programming environment, such as Python. The robot used is the CrowBot BOLT, a kit based on ESP32 that enables wireless communication and includes various peripherals for application development. The mobile robot topics include robot velocities, RGB LEDs, a buzzer, a programmable button, and proximity, light, and line sensors. The proposal is assessed using two controllers: one for proximity and the other for tracking angular light. Both controllers are developed using Visual Studio Code. The experimental results demonstrated the proper functioning of the tool. Additionally, the response time was evaluated, and it was found that optimal performance is achieved at a frequency of 10 Hz. In summary, this proposal provides an accessible option for students and developers seeking to gain skills in robotics using ROS. The project’s repository is located at https://github.com/joseVarelaAldas/ROS-Crowbot

A method for continuous-range sequence analysis with jensen-shannon divergence

Mutual Information (MI) is a useful Information Theory tool for the recognition of mutual dependence between data sets. Several methods have been developed fore estimation of MI when both data sets are of the discrete type or when both are of the continuous type. However, MI estimation between a discrete range data set and a continuous range data set has not received so much attention. We therefore present here a method for the estimation of MI for this case, based on the kernel density approximation. This calculation may be of interest in diverse contexts. Since MI is closely related to the Jensen Shannon divergence, the method developed here is of particular interest in the problems of sequence segmentation and set comparisons.Fil: Re, Miguel Angel. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomia y Física. Sección Física. Grupo de Física de la Atmosfera; ArgentinaFil: Aguirre Varela, Guillermo Gabriel. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomia y Física. Sección Física. Grupo de Física de la Atmosfera; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentin

Electrostatic potential: A new approach for some mixed boundary value problems

A new approach to the solution of problems of electrostatics, some of them with mixed boundary conditions, is presented. The proposed scheme can be used in cases were we have a formal solution in the form of a series in Legendre polynomials and the boundary or matching conditions are given not on the whole interval (0, π) of the polar variable, θ, but only over the interval (0, π/2) or (π/2, π). Truncation of the series after the Nth term and the projection on the subspace generated by the set of the first N even (or odd) Legendre polynomials allows us to determine the unknown coefficients of the approximate solution. The results show rapid convergence toward the exact values as we increase the number of terms, N, included in the approximate solutions. The procedure allows to solve approximately some problems whose exact solutions, we believe, are not yet known.Fil: Prato, Domingo Pedro. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física. Sección Física; ArgentinaFil: Aguirre Varela, Guillermo Gabriel. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física. Sección Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentin

IoT-Based Alternating Current Electrical Parameters Monitoring System

Energy monitors are indispensable for achieving efficient electrical grids and even more so in the age of the Internet of Things (IoT), where electrical system data are monitored from anywhere in the world. This paper presents the development of a two-channel electrical parameter-monitoring system based on the M5 Stack Core2 kit. The acquisition of variables is done through PZEM 004T V3.0 sensors, and the data are sent to the ThingSpeak cloud database. Local readings are done through the LCD, and data re stored on a micro SD card. Remote monitoring is done through two applications, namely a web application and a mobile application, each designed for different purposes. To validate this proposal, a commercial device with IoT features (Gen 2 Vue Energy Monitor) is used, comparing the active power and active energy readings recorded continuously for 7 days. The results indicate an accuracy of up to 1.95% in power and 0.81% in energy, obtaining a low-cost compact product with multiple features

El servicio de atención al cliente en las entidades de crédito

Tras algunos años de experiencia, se hace necesario reflexionar sobre aspectos importantes relativos a los Servicios de Atención al Cliente de las entidades de crédito