The Last Ten Years in the Bristish Education System

Después de la Segunda Guerra mundial, Gran Bretaña se encontró con una escasez de trabajadores cualificados sin precedente. El problema más importante era como animar a la población más joven a continuar su educación ya que cada uno de ellos era una pieza imprescindible en la reconstrucción nacional y en la imagen internacional del país. La discriminación racial y la filosofía de Charles Darwin ayudó a elaborar la idea que el británico blanco tenía la superioridad económica , moral e intelectual sobre los recién llegados de las excolonias; como resultado el pensamiento de que un grupo social o racial podría ser visto como más o menos inteligente arrojó una sombra en el siglo XXI. Los políticos no esperaban la crisis financiera que comenzó en 2008, la masiva corrupción a todos los niveles, la indiferencia del alumnado por su futuro y los esfuerzos tanto para reorganizar un sistema educativo en decadencia como para reconstruir una sociedad más cohesiva. La libre circulación de personas en Europa ha originado un flujo incontrolado de ciudadanos miembros dando como resultado enfrentamientos culturales y raciales. Muchos de los cambios en el sistema educativo se llevaron a cabo siguiendo una doctrina política determinada. Decisiones imprudentes y disparatadas fueron el resultado de la rivalidad entre partidos políticos sin tener en cuenta lo mejor para la población; aunque otras decisiones se tomaron con afán de mejorar tuvieron resultados pésimos. Las implicaciones de los documentos de educación más relevantes han sido analizadas en los once capítulos que componen esta tesis cubriendo la educación infantil y primaria, el Currículum Nacional, formación profesional, estudios universitarios, la contratación del profesorado y empleados públicos, la aparición de las academias, el acoso escolar, la multiculturalidad en las aulas, los presupuestos, la transmisión de las tradiciones y la importancia de la música. La lectura y reflexión de la documentación oficial se ha llevado a cabo para poder avanzar adecuadamente en la elaboración de cada uno de los capítulos. Para mí, esta tesis ha sido un viaje hacia una nueva forma de entender hacia dónde va la educación. No sabía lo que me iba a encontrar. Solamente he estado aceptando lo que me he estado encontrando en el camino. La evolución del sistema hacia una incondicional flexibilidad es indispensable para que los cambios se produzcan sin traumas y acordes a las tendencias sociales, políticas y económicas del momento. El futuro es incierto a lo que una actitud positiva y comprensiva para lo que aún no ha llegado es la única manera de mejorar. Sinceramente creo que mi tesis es una plataforma para futuras investigaciones. Las sociedades no dejan de cambiar y nuevas modificaciones serán requeridas tan pronto como nuevos modelos emerjan. Por lo cual sería muy interesante analizar los programas educativos expuestos en esta investigación en un lapsus de tiempo de diez años; de esta manera se podría ver la eficacia de los mismos en la preparación de una sociedad hacia una nueva era

Methodology for the metric restoration of the historical cartography applied to Francisco Coello's cartografic series of the Royal Site of Aranjuez

Hojas Kilométricas (Kilometric Sheets). Specifically, the study focuses on those sheets referring to the city centre and surrounding area of the Royal Site of Aranjuez, a town in the south of the Province of Madrid. The aim of this study is to restore the actual size and measurements of scanned images of the Hojas Kilométricas. This would allow us, among other things, to reestablish both the format and scale of the original plans. To achieve this goal it is necessary to rectify and then georeference these images, i.e. assign them a geographic reference system. This procedure is essential in the overlaying and comparison of the Hojas Kilométricas of the Royal Site with other historical cartography as well as other sources related to the same area from different time periods. Subsequent research would allow us, for example, to reconstruct the time-evolution of the urban area, to spot new construction and to pinpoint the locations of any altered or missing buildings or architectural features. In addition, this would allow us to develop and integrate databases for GIS models applicable to the management of our cultural heritage

Anytime coalition structure generation on synergy graphs

We consider the coalition structure generation (CSG) problem on synergy graphs, which arises in many practical applications where communication constraints, social or trust relationships must be taken into account when forming coalitions. We propose a novel representation of this problem based on the concept of edge contraction, and an innovative branch and bound approach (CFSS), which is particularly efficient when applied to a general class of characteristic functions. This new model provides a non-redundant partition of the search space, hence allowing an effective parallelisation. We evaluate CFSS on two benchmark functions, the edge sum with coordination cost and the collective energy purchasing functions, comparing its performance with the best algorithm for CSG on synergy graphs: DyCE. The latter approach is centralised and cannot be efficiently parallelised due to the exponential memory requirements in the number of agents, which limits its scalability (while CFSS memory requirements are only polynomial). Our results show that, when the graphs are very sparse, CFSS is 4 orders of magnitude faster than DyCE. Moreover, CFSS is the first approach to provide anytime approximate solutions with quality guarantees for very large systems (i.e., with more than 2700 agents

The pedagogical importance of evacuation drills in schools as a means of increasing the preventive culture in Spain

[ENG] Education centres in general represent one of the places in which safety becomes something totally essential, due to the special vulnerability of children. The normal day-to-day practice of a school, supposes a series of risks and therefore it is important for the Educational Community to work actively to ensure that the school environment is as safe as possible. Of all the possible risks, fire is perhaps one of the most feared by society, and it is also that which is most likely to occur. The Educational Community in general, should be aware that the spreading of a correct preventive culture, has as its starting point the “Educational Centre” (Lewis, 2009), and it is of vital importance that this prevention culture, reaches all the pupils and teachers in order to be able to increase the level of prevention in schools and to achieve important progress in this matter at a social level. The schools must be prepared to react correctly when faced with any emergency situation that may arise and thus, if it is important to carry out annual evacuation drills, it is even more determinant that the pupils receive adequate prevention training

Nanocátalysts for oxygen removal from biomass derived biofuel

The use of bio-energy as a renewable alternative to fossil fuels is nowadays attracting more and more attention. Bio-fuel from biomass seems to be a potential energy substitute for fossil fuels since it is a renewable resource that could contribute to sustainable development and global environmental preservation and it appears to have significant economic potential. Liquid fuels can be obtained from fast pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass, where fast pyrolysis is a promising route because the process takes place at moderate temperatures, in absence of air and with a short hot vapor residence time. However, these liquid fuels have poor quality due to their low volatility, high viscosity, low heating value, a high oxygen content and poor chemical stability. This high oxygen is due to the presence of oxygen-containing compounds such as alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, furans and phenols. In this sense, catalytic hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) is one the most efficient processes to remove oxygen from these liquid fuels. In this context, the catalyst design is of upmost importance to achieve a high degree of deoxygenation, and bifunctional catalysts are required to achieve high degrees of activity. Noble metal and non-noble metal based catalysts will be evaluated in HDO of model molecules in order to get further insight about the important role of the active phase. Transition metal phosphides have shown excellent catalytic performances due to their good hydrogen transfer properties that diminishes the amount of metal exposed, avoiding, as much as possible, the deactivation, and modifies the electronic density of the catalyst leading to solids that favors the HDO. In addition these phosphides show bifunctional catalytic properties (metallic sites for hydrogenation and acid sites for cracking, methyl transfer reaction, dehydration and isomerization).Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Impact of Ghrelin Receptor Antagonism on Nicotine Addiction & Cessation Related Weight Gain/Regain

Nicotine (NIC) addiction remains a prevalent concern in the US. The number of users continues to climb while cessation success remains low due to the lack of successful available options for quitting. NIC, a well-known weight control substance, is appealing for the obese and those who fear becoming obese. Obesity, too, is a major concern that remains difficult to treat and overcome. One speculation is that NIC cessation-related weight gain provides an increased likelihood of relapse and continued use. Ghrelin (GHR), a gut peptide, has been implicated in the endogenous reward system of appetitive behaviors, including smoking and unhealthy dietary intake. The effects of GHR on feeding and psychostimulant function, accompanied by findings on GHR receptor (GHR-R) manipulation, has lead us to investigate possible pharmacological dual-treatment approaches for both NIC dependence and smoking cessation-related weight gain. The mechanisms of action for NIC and literature supporting GHR’s involvement in NIC addiction that favor a dual-treatment hypothesis are investigated here. Experiment 1 examined the antagonistic effects of the GHR-R antagonist, JMV- 2959, and the agonistic effects of GHR on intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS). Experiments 2-3 examined the effects of JMV-2959 on NIC and cocaine intravenous self-administration (IVSA). Experiment 4 examined the effects of GHR on cocaine IVSA. Experiment 5 examined the effects of JMV-2959 on NIC-cessation related highfat (HIFAT) food intake and weight gain. Experiment 6 examined the potential of JMV- iii 2959 to induce malaise in a conditioned taste aversion (CTA) task. The results for Experiment 1 show that JMV-2959 and GHR alone are incapable of mitigating reward-seeking behavior in ICSS. Experiments 2-4’s results show that JMV-2959 diminishes the reinforcing effects of NIC and COC IVSA, while GHR alone failed to alter COC IVSA. Experiment 5’s results support the notion that JMV-2959 may be a useful tool in curbing the general weight gain and NIC cessation-related weight gain. Experiment 6’s results confirm that JMV-2959 does not induce malaise. Collectively, these experiments provide evidence that GHR is involved in rewardbehavior and that antagonism of GHR-Rs may provide a serious pathway for the dualtreatment of NIC addiction and weight gain, potentially mitigating drug-seeking for other psychostimulants

Evolution Of Fair Business Performance As A Tool Of Marketing In Spain

Although the distance communication systems have been developed in the last years thanks to the development of communication and information technologies, recent studies argue that simple ways of communication like fairs maintain and increase their weigh cause of their profitability. In this way the fairs represent an important communication platform, whose use is generalized in the all economic areas. The aim of this paper is analyze the evolution of fair business in Spain, in the period 2002-2009, to solve two important questions which revolve about the efficiency of this communication tool and its power to maintain and establish new business relationship. For this, this paper analyzes the main characteristics or indicators of fair business, such as number of celebrated events, areas of interest, number of exhibitors or the number of attendees, from the information of Spanish Association of Fairs