Use of Carbonated Water as Kneading in Mortars Made with Recycled Aggregates

The increased concern about climate change is revolutionising the building materials sector, making sustainability and environmental friendliness increasingly important. This study evaluates the feasibility of incorporating recycled masonry aggregate (construction and demolition waste) in porous cement-based materials using carbonated water in mixing followed (or not) by curing in a CO2 atmosphere. The use of carbonated water can be very revolutionary in cement-based materials, as it allows hydration and carbonation to occur simultaneously. Calcite and portlandite in the recycled masonry aggregate and act as a buffer for the low-pH carbonated water. Carbonated water produced better mechanical properties and increased accessible water porosity and dry bulk density. The same behaviour was observed with natural aggregates. Carbonated water results in an interlaced shape of carbonate ettringite (needles) and fills the microcracks in the recycled masonry aggregate. Curing in CO2 together with the use of carbonated water (concomitantly) is not beneficial. This study provides innovative solutions for a circular economy in the construction sector using carbonated water in mixing (adsorbing CO2), which is very revolutionary as it allows carbonation to be applied to in-situ products

Review of the Application of Hydrotalcite as CO2 Sinks for Climate Change Mitigation

In recent decades, the environmental impact caused by greenhouse gases, especially CO2, has driven many countries to reduce the concentration of these gases. The study and development of new designs that maximise the efficiency of CO2 capture continue to be topical. This paper presents a review of the application of hydrotalcites as CO2 sinks. There are several parameters that can make hydrotalcites suitable for use as CO2 sinks. The first question is the use of calcined or uncalcined hydrotalcite as well as the temperature at which it is calcined, since the calcination conditions (temperature, rate and duration) are important parameters determining structure recovery. Other aspects were also analysed: (i) the influence of the pH of the synthesis; (ii) the molar ratio of its main elements; (iii) ways to increase the specific area of hydrotalcites; (iv) pressure, temperature, humidity and time in CO2 absorption; and (v) combined use of hydrotalcites and cement-based materials. A summary of the results obtained so far in terms of CO2 capture with the parameters described above is presented. This work can be used as a guide to address CO2 capture with hydrotalcites by showing where the information gaps are and where researchers should apply their efforts

Performance of Sustainable Mortars Made with Filler from Different Construction By-Products

One way to contribute to sustainability in the construction sector is through the incorporation of construction by-products from their own activities. This work intends to extend the possibilities for enhancement of these by-products through the incorporation of four different ones, as fillers, in mortar production. The influence of these incorporations in mortar production was compared with a reference mortar with siliceous filler in its fresh state; workability, entrained air content and fresh density, and in its hardened state; capillary water absorption, water vapour permeability and shrinkage (up to 91 days); and adhesive, compressive, and flexural strength; the last two were studied over time (up to 180 days). Despite the reduction in compressive strength, both in the short and long term, there was a gain in adhesive strength when the construction by-products were incorporated. Regarding the physical properties and durability studied, no relevant differences were found with respect to the reference mortar. According to the European Specifications, these mortars could be used as regular or coloured rendering and plastering mortars, and masonry mortars, and these findings promote the circular economy in the construction sector

Paper andaluz SWOT analysis of tourism: a study of emerging market segments as business opportunities for the tourism sector

El sector turístico se encuentra inmerso en un entorno cambiante caracterizado por los avances tecnológicos, la competencia global, la aparición de nuevas fuerzas competitivas y la crisis económica actual. No obstante, el turismo es el sector económico que mejor está resistiendo la crisis. Así, según estimaciones de la Organización Mundial del Turismo (O.M.T., 2009)1 , el sector turístico ha cerrado el año 2008 con un crecimiento del 2%, aproximadamente. Este resultado es consecuencia de la solidez mostrada por el sector en los cinco primeros meses del año, habiendo crecido un 3 ́7% de media en los ocho primeros meses del año 2008, con respecto al mismo periodo del año anterior (O.M.T., 2008)2 . No obstante, desde mediados de 2008, el crecimiento del turismo internacional ha experimentado una rápida desaceleración (O.M.T., 2008)3 causada por no sólo por la crisis económica, sino también por la subida en el precio del petróleo y el deterioro de la confianza de los consumidores. De hecho, este último factor ha provocado tanto una disminución en el flujo de turistas extranjeros como en la estancia media por turista, y, por consiguiente, en el volumen de los ingresos por turismo. Todas estas circunstancias están teniendo consecuencias negativas en el turismo andaluz, uno de los sectores más relevantes de la economía andaluza. Con una aportación al PIB del 12 ́5% a lo largo del año 2008, habiendo registrado unos ingresos anuales de 17.100 millones de euros, y habiendo recibido 25 ́1 millones de turistas, en el mismo periodo, ocupa, actualmente, a 450.000 personas (Instituto de Estadística de Andalucía, 2009). La relevancia del turismo andaluz, unido a las circunstancias en el que se desenvuelve actualmente, hacen necesario adoptar una visión estratégica que permitan al destino andaluz, en general, y a las empresas que lo integran, en particular, planificar su futuro, para tratar de minimizar las amenazas, y aprovechar las oportunidades que puedan surgir a medio y largo plazo. A través de la elaboración y puesta en práctica de los planes estratégicos el destino turístico andaluz podrá adaptarse a las circunstancias actuales del entorno y atraer inversión, industrias y visitantes, diseñando nuevas estrategias de comercialización del destino turístico, a partir del análisis del entorno turístico. Por ello, y bajo la óptica de la comercialización e investigación de mercados, centraremos nuestra investigación en dos puntos clave en la planificación estratégica del destino turístico de Andalucía: 1- La realización de un análisis DAFO, es decir, interno y externo, del sector turístico de Andalucía, en la actualidad. 2- El estudio de los segmentos de mercado emergentes en el sector turístico, considerados, además, como oportunidad de negocio para el sector turístico andaluz.The tourism industry is immersed in a changing environment characterized by technological advances, global competition, new competitive forces and the current economic crisis. However, tourism is the economic sector that is better to resist the crisis. Thus, according to estimates by the World Tourism Organization (WTO, 2009), the tourism industry has closed 2008 with a growth of 2% or so. This result is a consequence of the strength shown by the sector in the first five months of the year, having grown an average 3'7% in the first eight months of 2008, compared with the same period last year (WTO, 2008) . However, since mid-2008, growth in international tourism has experienced a rapid deceleration (WTO, 2008) caused by not only by the economic crisis, but also on the rise in oil prices and deteriorating confidence of consumers. In fact, this last factor has caused both a decrease in the flow of foreign tourists and the average stay per tourist, and therefore the volume of tourism revenues. All these circumstances are having a negative impact on tourism andalucians one of the most significant sectors of the economy of Andalusia. With a contribution to GDP of 12'5% in the year 2008, having recorded an annual income of 17,100 million euros, and having received 25'1 million tourists in the same period, is currently at 450,000 (Instituto de Estadística de Andalucía, 2009). The relevance of the andalusian tourism, coupled with the circumstances in which it operates today, it is necessary to adopt a strategic vision to andalusian destiny in general and the companies comprising it, in particular, plan ahead, to try to minimize threats and exploit opportunities that may arise in the medium and long term. Through the development and implementation of strategic plans andalusian tourist destination may be adapted to the current environment and attract investment, visitors and industry, designing new strategies for marketing the destination, based on the analysis of the tourism environment. Therefore, under the perspective of marketing and market research, our research will focus on two key points: 1 - Conducting a SWOT analysis, ie, internal and external, of the tourism sector in Andalusia. 2 - Taking the study of certain segments of the market as a business opportunity for tourism andalusian

The certification in the Spanish tourism sector: management of the Spanish beach

El modelo de “sol y playa”, pieza clave del sector turístico español, se basa en las playas como principal recurso de la actividad turística. Los cambios acaecidos en el entorno debido a los avances tecnológicos, el cambio en el comportamiento del consumidor turístico, así como el aumento de la competencia con la aparición de nuevos destinos turísticos competidores de “sol y playa”, han llevado a la necesidad de reinventar el tradicional producto turístico de sol y playa, buscando diferenciarse de los competidores a través de la calidad, el respeto del medioambiente y la accesibilidad. En este sentido, las administraciones han encontrado en las certificaciones una vía para alcanzar la máxima calidad, ofrecer el mejor servicio al cliente y diferenciarse de los competidores. Esto se debe a que la obtención de certificaciones oficiales es reconocida en el mercado, tanto por los tour operadores como por los turistas, proporcionando una mayor seguridad y garantía al cliente, beneficiando la imagen y el atractivo del destino turístico. El propósito de nuestra investigación es la revisión de las certificaciones existentes en el ámbito español en materia de playas, analizando cada una de ellas a través de su aplicación en un caso real, para lo cual utilizaremos el método del caso como metodología de investigación.The model of "sun and beach", key part of the Spanish tourism sector, is based on the beaches as the main resource of tourism. The changes in the environment due to technological advances, changing consumer behavior tourism and increased competition with the emergence of new competing destinations "sun and beach”, have led to the need to reinvent Product traditional seaside resort, seeking to differentiate themselves from competitors through quality, respect for the environment and accessibility. In this sense, governments have found in the certificates one way to achieve the highest quality, providing the best customer service and differentiate themselves from competitors. This is because obtaining official certification is recognized in the market, both tour operators and the tourists, providing greater security and customer warranty, benefiting the image and attractiveness of the destination. The purpose of our research is to review existing certifications in the Spanish on beaches, looking at each through its application on a real case, for which use the case method as a research methodology

Spark solutions for discovering fuzzy association rules in Big Data

The research reported in this paper was partially supported the COPKIT project from the 8th Programme Framework (H2020) research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 786687) and from the BIGDATAMED projects with references B-TIC-145-UGR18 and P18-RT-2947.The high computational impact when mining fuzzy association rules grows significantly when managing very large data sets, triggering in many cases a memory overflow error and leading to the experiment failure without its conclusion. It is in these cases when the application of Big Data techniques can help to achieve the experiment completion. Therefore, in this paper several Spark algorithms are proposed to handle with massive fuzzy data and discover interesting association rules. For that, we based on a decomposition of interestingness measures in terms of α-cuts, and we experimentally demonstrate that it is sufficient to consider only 10equidistributed α-cuts in order to mine all significant fuzzy association rules. Additionally, all the proposals are compared and analysed in terms of efficiency and speed up, in several datasets, including a real dataset comprised of sensor measurements from an office building.COPKIT project from the 8th Programme Framework (H2020) research and innovation programme 786687BIGDATAMED projects B-TIC-145-UGR18 P18-RT-294

Entorno y sector turístico: percepciones de la dirección hotelera

El sector turístico, al igual que otros sectores económicos, no se ha quedado al margen de la actual crisis económica. El qué hacer frente a esta compleja y difícil coyuntura requiere, entre otros, no sólo conocer las nuevas condiciones del entorno, sino, más aún, saber actuar en relación a las mismas. Un conocer y saber hacer que adquiere connotaciones especiales en el sector turístico, caracterizado, entre otros, por una demanda muy elástica e inestable, una oferta rígida a medio y largo plazo, y un producto intangible e imposible de almacenar. El propósito de esta investigación es explorar la relación entorno- sector turístico. Nos serviremos para ello de uno de los agentes turísticos, tradicionalmente, más relevantes: el sector hotelero. Concretamente, analizaremos las percepciones de sus máximos responsables: la dirección hotelera. Consideramos que, si bien los actuales cambios del entorno están afectando negativamente al desarrollo y supervivencia de muchas entidades, siendo el responsable de la desaparición actual de muchas, debemos encontrar nuevas oportunidades que nos garanticen no sólo la supervivencia sino el crecimiento dentro del mismo.The Tourist Sector, as other economic ones, has not remained to the margin of current economic crisis. In relation to this complex and difficult conjuncture it is essential not only to know the new conditions of the environment, but even more, to be able to operate in the same ones. This knowledge acquires special connotations in the Tourist Sector, characterized, among others, by a very elastic and unstable demand, a rigid offer to half and long term, and a product intangible and impossible to store. This research aims to explore the relationship Environment - Tourist Sector. Specifically, we will analyze the perceptions of the maximums responsible in the hotel industry: the hotel management. We think that, though the recent changes of the environment are concerning negatively the development and survival of many entities, even being, many times, direct responsible of their disappearance, we must find new opportunities that guarantee not only the survival but the growth inside the same one

New Spark solutions for distributed frequent itemset and association rule mining algorithms

Funding for open access publishing: Universidad de Gran- ada/CBUA. The research reported in this paper was partially sup- ported by the BIGDATAMED project, which has received funding from the Andalusian Government (Junta de Andalucı ́a) under grant agreement No P18-RT-1765, by Grants PID2021-123960OB-I00 and Grant TED2021-129402B-C21 funded by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacio ́n and, by ERDF A way of making Europe and by the European Union NextGenerationEU. In addition, this work has been partially supported by the Ministry of Universities through the EU- funded Margarita Salas programme NextGenerationEU. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada/CBUAThe large amount of data generated every day makes necessary the re-implementation of new methods capable of handle with massive data efficiently. This is the case of Association Rules, an unsupervised data mining tool capable of extracting information in the form of IF-THEN patterns. Although several methods have been proposed for the extraction of frequent itemsets (previous phase before mining association rules) in very large databases, the high computational cost and lack of memory remains a major problem to be solved when processing large data. Therefore, the aim of this paper is three fold: (1) to review existent algorithms for frequent itemset and association rule mining, (2)to develop new efficient frequent itemset Big Data algorithms using distributive computation, as well as a new association rule mining algorithm in Spark, and (3) to compare the proposed algorithms with the existent proposals varying the number of transactions and the number of items. To this purpose, we have used the Spark platform which has been demonstrated to outperform existing distributive algorithmic implementations.Universidad de Granada/CBUAJunta de Andalucia P18-RT-1765Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain (MICINN) Instituto de Salud Carlos III Spanish Government PID2021-123960OB-I00, TED2021-129402B-C21ERDF A way of making EuropeEuropean Union NextGenerationEUMinistry of Universities through the E

L'interaction entre les infrastructures et le karst. La méthode d'analyse Protekarst

This paper presents the Protekarst method, by which karst protection zones can be mapped after quantifying their main geologi-cal, botanical, zoological, scenic, archaeological, hydrogeological, economic and social characteristics. The method was applied to a sierra in southern Spain. We describe the contribution made by the method to the design of new road infrastructure, and show that it enables us to compare alternative routes, to evaluate the impact made on karst values by previous road construction and to select suitable routes for paths or trails that pass through karst areas of special interest.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Analysis of the tensile fracture properties of ultra-high-strength fiber-reinforced concrete with different types of steel fibers by X-ray tomography

This study is concerned with the analysis of the tensile properties of an ultra-high-strength fiber-reinforced concrete manufactured with short and long steel fibers. The analysis involve using different techniques - from mechanical tests to X-ray computed tomography - to relate the observed variation of the mechanical properties of the mixes with their porosity. A comprehensive study of the porosity distribution was conducted on the basis of the analysis of X-ray computed tomography images and porosimetry. The study shows the influence of the type of fiber used in the reinforcement on the pore size and distribution of the concrete matrix and consequently on its tensile properties. The tensile properties are obtained with an inverse analysis method available in the literature that yielded the first-cracking tensile strength (f t ) and the ultimate tensile strength (f tu ) and related with the inner structure of the concrete matrix. Our results prove that the tensile properties, especially the first-cracking strength, vary depending on the fibers used. These findings help mix designers make a decision about the type of fibers that should be used when a high first-cracking tensile strength is needed and make it possible to quantify the effect of the fiber.Ministerio de Economía y competitividad BIA2016-75431-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad DPI2015-66534-RAcademia de Ciencias de la República Checa 16-18702