How are Natura 2000 protected areas covering different components of avian diversity in Spain?

We are grateful to all ornithologists involved in fieldwork, data collection, and data entry. We would like to thank SEO/Birdlife for kindly allowing us to use their Spanish Atlas of Breeding Birds (Martí & del Moral 2003) and particularly J.C. del Moral, B. Molina, and V. Escandell for their help and patience. Finally, we thank anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of our manuscript and their useful suggestions, which helped us improve the text’s final version.Protected areas are a relevant conservation tool at our disposal, especially for developing management strategies of natural habitats. However, explicit tests at large spatial scales about its effectivity protecting different components of biodiversity are still rare. This study explored the spatial matching between the distribution of three components of avian diversity (taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic metrics) and the network of Natura 2000 protected areas in Spain, the EU country with the most extensive terrestrial coverage. Overall, the spatial distribution of taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity was slightly spatially congruent, matching with protected areas. However, each avian diversity metric showed differences in the arrangement of spatial clusters, also regarding the environment type. Species richness was higher in forests while it was lower in orchards, mixed environments, and arable lands. Functional dispersion was higher in forest and arable lands, while it was lower in wetlands. In contrast, the highest phylogenetic diversity was associated with wetlands and water bodies, with shrublands showing the lowest levels for this metric. All three avian diversity metrics were overall higher within than outside the Natura 2000 network. The species richness was higher in areas simultaneously protected by the Habitat and Birds Directives. Functional dispersion was higher in protected areas designed under the Birds Directive. Finally, the evolutionary uniqueness was well represented in all protected areas, although areas designed under Birds Directive showed the higher values for this metric. The presence of spatial mismatch among avian diversity components suggests the importance of considering taxonomic, functional, and evolutionary metrics simultaneously for a better spatial prioritisation in conservation planning

Effects of light and noise pollution on avian communities of European cities are correlated with the species’ diet

Urbanization affects avian community composition in European cities, increasing biotic homogenization. Anthropic pollution (such as light at night and noise) is among the most important drivers shaping bird use in urban areas, where bird species are mainly attracted by urban greenery. In this study, we collected data on 127 breeding bird species at 1349 point counts distributed along a gradient of urbanization in fourteen different European cities. The main aim was to explore the effects of anthropic pollution and city characteristics, on shaping the avian communities, regarding species’ diet composition. The green cover of urban areas increased the number of insectivorous and omnivorous bird species, while slightly decreasing the overall diet heterogeneity of the avian communities. The green heterogeneity—a measure of evenness considering the relative coverage of grass, shrubs and trees—was positively correlated with the richness of granivorous, insectivorous, and omnivorous species, increasing the level of diet heterogeneity in the assemblages. Additionally, the effects of light pollution on avian communities were associated with the species’ diet. Overall, light pollution negatively affected insectivorous and omnivorous bird species while not affecting granivorous species. The noise pollution, in contrast, was not significantly associated with changes in species assemblages. Our results offer some tips to urban planners, managers, and ecologists, in the challenge of producing more eco-friendly cities for the future.Czech Science Foundation GAČR (Project Number 18-16738S)The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019-107423GA-I00/SRA State Research Agency/10.13039/501100011033)

Minimum Number of Experimental Data for the Thermal Characterization of a Hot Water Storage Tank

[EN] This paper demonstrates that it is possible to characterize the water temperature profile and its temporal trend in a hot water storage tank during the thermal charge process, using a minimum number of thermocouples (TC), with minor differences compared to experimental data. Four experimental tests (two types of inlet and two water flow rates) were conducted in a 950 L capacity tank. For each experimental test (with 12 TC), four models were developed using a decreasing number of TC (7, 4, 3 and 2, respectively). The results of the estimation of water temperature obtained with each of the four models were compared with those of a fifth model performed with 12 TC. All models were tested for constant inlet temperature. Very acceptable results were achieved (RMSE between 0.2065 degrees C and 0.8706 degrees C in models with 3 TC). The models were also useful to estimate the water temperature profile and the evolution of thermocline thickness even with only 3 TC (RMSE between 0.00247 degrees C and 0.00292 degrees C). A comparison with a CFD model was carried out to complete the study with very small differences between both approaches when applied to the estimation of the instantaneous temperature profile. The proposed methodology has proven to be very effective in estimating several of the temperature-based indices commonly employed to evaluate thermal stratification in water storage tanks, with only two or three experimental temperature data measurements. It can also be used as a complementary tool to other techniques such as the validation of numerical simulations or in cases where only a few experimental temperature values are available.This research was supported by the Plan Nacional de I+D+i del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (ENE2009-13376).Gasque Albalate, M.; Ibáñez, F.; González Altozano, P. (2021). Minimum Number of Experimental Data for the Thermal Characterization of a Hot Water Storage Tank. Energies. 14(16):1-16. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14164741S116141

Diseño e implementación de una herramienta de visualización para análisis en tiempo real de redes SDN/OpenFlow

Las Redes Definidas por Software (Software Defined Networking) permiten la monitorización y el control centralizado de la red, de forma que los administradores pueden tener una visión real y completa de la misma. El análisis y visualización de los diferentes parámetros obtenidos representan la forma más viable y práctica de programar la red en función de las necesidades del usuario. Por este motivo, en este proyecto se desarrolla una arquitectura modular cuyo objetivo es presentar en tiempo real la información que se monitoriza en una red SDN. En primera instancia, las diferentes métricas monitorizadas (error, retardo y tasa de datos) son almacenadas en una base de datos, para que en una etapa posterior se realice el análisis de dichas métricas. Finalmente, los resultados obtenidos, tanto de métricas en tiempo real como de los datos estadísticos, son presentados en una aplicación web. La información es obtenida a través de la interfaz REST que expone el controlador Floodlight y para el análisis de la información se plantea una comparación entre los valores medios y máximos del conjunto de datos. Los resultados obtenidos muestran gráficamente de forma clara y precisa las diferentes métricas de monitorización. Además, debido al carácter modular de la arquitectura, se ofrece un valor añadido a los sistemas actuales de monitorización SDN

Unsupervised inference approach to facial attractiveness

The perception of facial beauty is a complex phenomenon depending on many, detailed and global facial features influencing each other. In the machine learning community this problem is typically tackled as a problem of supervised inference. However, it has been conjectured that this approach does not capture the complexity of the phenomenon. A recent original experiment (Ib\'a\~nez-Berganza et al., Scientific Reports 9, 8364, 2019) allowed different human subjects to navigate the face-space and ``sculpt'' their preferred modification of a reference facial portrait. Here we present an unsupervised inference study of the set of sculpted facial vectors in that experiment. We first infer minimal, interpretable, and faithful probabilistic models (through Maximum Entropy and artificial neural networks) of the preferred facial variations, that capture the origin of the observed inter-subject diversity in the sculpted faces. The application of such generative models to the supervised classification of the gender of the sculpting subjects, reveals an astonishingly high prediction accuracy. This result suggests that much relevant information regarding the subjects may influence (and be elicited from) her/his facial preference criteria, in agreement with the multiple motive theory of attractiveness proposed in previous works.Comment: main article (10 pages, 4 figures) + supplementary information (22 pages, 10 figures). minor typos corrected. Federico Maggiore added as autho

Analysis of Flow Factor Control Strategy in Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries

International audienceOptimization of the performance of vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) is closely related to flow rate control: a proper flow rate adjustment reduces the losses and extends the battery lifetime. In this regard, the so-called flow factor control strategy of VRFBs has been recently proposed in the literature and some numerical/experimental validations have been performed. The strategy is a generalization of Faraday's first law of electrolysis as it uses a special scaling parameter referred to as the flow factor. In our paper, we show how this factor is related to the conversion rate (fraction conversion per pass) and geometrical properties of the battery. Finally, we investigate the flow factor as a function of the fraction conversion per pass and stack/tank volumes, and perform numerical simulations to confirm the theoretical results

Relationship between Learning and Psychomotor Skills in Early Childhood Education

Psychomotor skills are, among others, an aspect particularly valuable for structuring the teaching–learning process of infant schoolchildren. For this reason, a study was carried out with the aim of describing and comparing the socio-demographic, psychomotor, and learning levels of schoolchildren in the second stage of infant education. Ninety-five pupils from the second cycle of infant education in the capital of Granada took part in this study. A sociodemographic questionnaire, the movement assessment battery for children-2 (MABC-2), and the preschool learning behaviour scale (PLBS) were used to collect data. The main results show that manual dexterity appears as the main motor factor and similar figures in the three dimensions of learning behaviours. On the other hand, balance and learning behaviours were higher in 6-year-old schoolchildren. In terms of gender, girls obtained higher values for the level of the learning behaviour variables. A positive correlation was found between the dimensions of learning and motor activity