Physical Activity Related to Forced Vital Capacity and Strength Performance in a Sample of Young Males and Females

To identify the extent of physical performance differences between active and sedentary subjects taking into account sexual dimorphism physical activity level was recorded by interview from a sample of 319 young university students of both sexes. Anthropometric variables and physical performance values were obtained. The sex factor was the main variable explaining the differences in physical performance between active and sedentary young. Also contributors to those differences were forced vital capacity (FVC), heart rate after exercise and rest heart rate, together with the explosive component of strength (vertical jump). The effect of physical activity was shown in the increment of FVC and the decrease of resting heart rate. In the overall sample, heart rate after exercise, either in active males or active females, was lowered with respect to the sedentary subjects, showing that active females experienced a greater cardiovascular benefit following adaptation to training than sedentary

A multi-agent system for managing adverse weather situations on the road network

The development of traffic management and control strategies to improve traffic flows and road safety is necessary due to the high dynamism of traffic flows. The use of distributed intelligent systems can help the traffic organizations and the road operators to cope with possible incidents on the road network, especially when the incidents are related to adverse meteorological conditions. In that case, the probability of road accidents is increased due to the difficulty of driving under bad weather conditions. So, if the operators detect any meteorological incident, they must decide how to deal with it in order to improve traffic safety. In this paper we introduce a new multiagent system (MAS) to support traffic management when there appear meteorological problems in the road network. MAS technology helps to deal with the specific characteristics of traffic domain. The proposed MAS is able to work in two ways: a) coordinately, where all the agents work to solve weather problems in large networks and b) locally, where due to communications breakdown small groups of agents work together to inform road users about weather problems. The MAS has a rule-based system to deal with the meteorological data and decide the actions to take in front of any meteorological issue. This expert system also controls the quality of the data, improving the road operator confidence in the decisions taken by the expert system. However, weather sensors can provide wrong data, due to several factors (hardware failure, climate factors, etc.) so the rule based system controls these provided data by applying specific coherence and correlation rules to improve the quality of the taken decisions

Holistic or Traditional Conceptions of Heritage among Early-Childhood and Primary Trainee Teachers

This study examines the conception of heritage—holistic or traditional—among future early-childhood and primary teachers. In order to do this, our objective was to analyze trainee teachers’ perceptions surrounding the conception of heritage. To carry out the analysis, we designed and validated a questionnaire with closed-ended questions (Likert scale 1–5) and one open-ended question about the elements that respondents considered to be part of what we define as heritage. The participants (n = 602) study at the universities of Alicante, Murcia, and Córdoba, and the investigation took place during 2018/19 and 2019/20 academic years. The results show a traditional conception that is still attached to immovable monumental heritage, with lower scores for intangible and natural heritage. However, there were some high scores for traditions and popular festivals, which are a frequent educational resource in early-childhood and primary classrooms. In conclusion, this non-holistic conception of heritage could be changed if an active and varied use of heritage resources were introduced from the early stages of education.This research was funded by the UNIVERSITY OF ALICANTE, grant number GRE18-13A; by the MINISTRY OF SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND UNIVERSITITES grant number PGC2018-094491-B-C33, and by GENERAL DIRECTORATE OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL RESEARCH grant number HAR2015-68059-C2-1-R. This work was supported by the I3CE Network Programme of Research in University Teaching of the Vice-Rectorate of Educational Quality and Innovation–Institute of Educational Sciences of the UNIVERSITY OF ALICANTE (convened 2019–20), Grant number 4825

Evolution of Research into the Management of Family Businesses that are Part of the Instituto de la Empresa Familiar Network of Chairs (1992-2016)

The family business field of study has grown considerably in recent years in Spain. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that twenty years ago there was barely any research in this field. In 1992, exactly 25 years ago, a group of family entrepreneurs founded the Instituto de la Empresa Familiar (IEF). IEF created the Chair in Family Business at Spanish universities to foster its inclusion in Business Administration syllabuses and promote its research by Spanish academics. This paper analyses the evolution of research into family businesses carried out by academics who are part of the IEF Network of Chairs, both at international and management level. To do this, the ISI Web of Knowledge database and Scopus were used as sources of information

High performance genetic algorithm for land use planning

[Abstract] This study uses genetic algorithms to formulate and develop land use plans. The restrictions to be imposed and the variables to be optimized are selected based on current local and national legal rules and experts’ criteria. Other considerations can easily be incorporated in this approach. Two optimization criteria are applied: land suitability and the shape-regularity of the resulting land use patches. We consider the existing plots as the minimum units for land use allocation. As the number of affected plots can be large, the algorithm execution time is potentially high. The work thus focuses on implementing and analyzing different parallel paradigms: multi-core parallelism, cluster parallelism and the combination of both. Some tests were performed that show the suitability of genetic algorithms to land use planning problems.Xunta de Galicia; 2010/06Xunta de Galicia; 2010/28Xunta de Galicia; 08SIN011291P

Implicaciones paleoecológicas inferidas de la caracterización isotópica (δ13C,δ15N) del colágeno óseo de Ursus spelaeus ROS.-HEIN.

[Abstract] Stable isotopic signatures measured in bone collagen provide with data related to the species diet type. In this paper we compare δ13C and δ15N outcomes in Ursus spelaeus ROS.-HEIN. Bone remains from Liñares site and Cova Eirós site (Galicia, NW of the Iberian Peninsula). Some data on fossil Ursus arctos L. and Pleistocene Cervus elaphus L. from Galician caves are also presented, as a first approach to distinguish paleodiets of different species inferred from their isotopic signatures. Once all data have been analyzed with proper statistical tools and since this work was planned in order to reduce variation in stable isotopic signals caused by metabolic causes, we may assume that the observed differences between both studied groups are exclusively due to environmental factors and show a migration of the cave bear population in the Serra do Courel mountains from higher to lower altitudes because of the transition from warm climatic conditions to colder ones

Heritage conception between Early-Childhood Education training teachers

Los autores de la investigación quieren agradecer la participación a los docentes en formación, así como a las tres instituciones de pertenencia: Universidad de Murcia, Universidad de Córdoba y Universidad de Alicante. Así mismo, agradecer a los respectivos grupos de investigación involucrados, así como a las experiencias previas llevadas a cabo en el grupo de investigación DICSO (Universidad de Murcia) y que han permitido el diseño del instrumento utilizado.La investigación educativa pocas veces presta atención a la enseñanza de contenidos conceptuales históricos en Educación Infantil, problema heredado de la visión psicoevolutiva piagetiana que impediría al alumnado de Infantil adquirir conocimientos abstractos. En esta investigación se plantea como objetivo conocer cuál es la concepción del profesorado en formación de Educación Infantil sobre los elementos culturales del patrimonio, puesto que son un contenido fundamental en la enseñanza de la historia escolar al servir de fuente primaria para conocer el pasado. La metodología empleada ha sido cualitativa-cuantitativa a través de un cuestionario que ha servido como instrumento de investigación y sus resultados analizados mediante SPSS 24. Los resultados muestran que el futuro profesorado de Educación Infantil tiene una visión limitada y no holística del concepto de patrimonio, donde se mantiene el peso de los grandes hitos y monumentos, a excepción de las fiestas y tradiciones populares que son un recurso muy presente en la Educación Infantil.Few times educative research pay attention to conceptual contents teaching in history education, inherited problem from the piagetinian psychoevolutive approach that indicates that children in Early-Childhood education are not able to learn abstract contents. In this paper, the target is to know the conception that Early-Childhood training teachers have about the concept of heritage, due to its importance as primary font to meet the past. The methodology implemented is qualitative quantitative using a questionnaire as evaluation instrument and SPSS 24 to analyze the results. These results show that future Early-Childhood teachers have a limited and no holistic conception of heritage, just taking in account big monuments except from popular traditions and folk that are a very used resource in Early-Childhood Education.Este trabajo es resultado del proyecto de investigación “El pensamiento geográfico e histórico del alumnado de Educación Primaria en la Región de Murcia: propuesta metodológica innovadora para una educación de calidad” (20874/PI/18). Proyecto financiado por la Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia a través de la convocatoria de Ayudas a proyectos para el desarrollo de investigación científica y técnica por grupos competitivos, incluida en el Programa Regional de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica (Plan de Actuación 2018) de la Fundación Séneca-Agencia de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Región de Murcia

La inteligencia artificial fue poco utilizada pero relevante en las revisiones sistemáticas sobre el COVID-19: un estudio metodológico

Este trabajo de investigación fue presentado como Trabajo Fin de Grado en la Facultad de Medicina de nuestra Universidad (convocatoria ordinaria, curso 2021/2022) el 13 de junio de 2022.Objective: A rapidly developing scenario like a pandemic requires the prompt production of high-quality systematic reviews, which can be automated using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. We evaluated the application of AI tools in COVID–19 evidence syntheses. Study design: After prospective registration of the review protocol, we automated the download of all open-access COVID–19 systematic reviews in the COVID–19 Living Overview of Evidence database, indexed them for AI-related keywords, and located those that used AI tools. We compared their journals’ JCR Impact Factor, citations per month, screening workloads, completion times (from pre-registration to preprint or submission to a journal) and AMSTAR–2 methodology assessments (maximum score 13 points) with a set of publication date matched control reviews without AI. Results: Of the 3 999 COVID–19 reviews, 28 (0.7 %, 95 % CI 0.47-1.03 %) made use of AI. On average, compared to controls (n = 64), AI reviews were published in journals with higher Impact Factors (median 8.9 vs. 3.5, P<0.001), and screened more abstracts per author (302.2 vs. 140.3, P=0.009) and per included study (189.0 vs. 365.8, P<0.001) while inspecting less full texts per author (5.3 vs. 14.0, P=0.005). No differences were found in citation counts (0.5 vs. 0.6, P=0.600), inspected full texts per included study (3.8 vs. 3.4, P=0.481), completion times (74.0 vs. 123.0, P=0.205) or AMSTAR–2 (7.5 vs. 6.3, P=0.119). Conclusion: AI was an underutilized tool in COVID–19 systematic reviews. Its usage, compared to reviews without AI, was associated with more efficient screening of literature and higher publication impact. There is scope for the application of AI in automating systematic reviews.Objetivo: Un escenario dinámico como una pandemia requiere la rápida producción de revisiones sistemáticas de calidad, que pueden automatizarse utilizando inteligencia artificial (IA). Se evaluó el uso de herramientas de IA en las revisiones sistemáticas sobre COVID–19. Diseño del estudio: Tras el registro prospectivo del protocolo del estudio, automatizamos la descarga de todas las revisiones sistemáticas open-access sobre COVID–19 en la base de datos COVID–19 Living Overview of Evidence, las indexamos en busca de palabras clave relacionadas con la IA y localizamos aquellas que utilizaban herramientas de IA. Comparamos el factor de impacto de sus revistas, las citas por mes recibidas, las cargas de trabajo en screening, el tiempo de elaboración (días desde el registro del protocolo hasta el primer preprint o envío a una revista) y la evaluación metodológica AMSTAR–2 (máximo, 13 puntos) con un grupo control de revisiones sistemáticas que no usaron IA emparejadas por fecha de publicación. Resultados: De las 3999 revisiones sobre COVID–19, 28 (0,7%, IC al 95%: 0,471,03 %) hicieron uso de IA. De media, en comparación con los controles (n = 64), las revisiones con IA se publicaron en revistas con mayor factor de impacto (mediana 8,9 vs. 3,5, P<0,001), y examinaron más abstracts por autor (302,2 vs. 140,3, P=0,009) y por estudio incluido (189,0 vs. 365,8, P<0,001), a la vez que inspeccionaron menos full texts por autor (5,3 vs. 14,0, P=0,005). No se encontraron diferencias en las citas recibidas (0,5 vs. 0,6, P=0,600), en full texts inspeccionados por estudio incluido (3,8 vs. 3,4, P=0,481), en los tiempos de elaboración (74 frente a 123, P=0,205) ni en puntuación AMSTAR–2 (7,5 frente a 6,3, P=0,119). Conclusión: La IA fue una herramienta infrautilizada en las revisiones sistemáticas sobre COVID–19. Su uso, en comparación con las revisiones sin IA, se asoció con una selección más eficiente de la literatura y un mayor impacto de publicación. Hay cabida para la aplicación de la IA en la automatización de las revisiones sistemáticas.La elaboración de este estudio fue becada con una “Beca de Iniciación a la Investigación para Estudiantes de Grado” del Plan Propio de Investigación 2021 de la UGR. El coste de la publicación open-access fue financiado por la Universidad de Granada y el Consorcio de Bibliotecas Universitarias de Andalucía (CBUA)

A simulated annealing algorithm for zoning in planning using parallel computing

[Abstract] There is an increasing demand for tools that support land use planning processes, particularly the design of zoning maps, which is one of the most complex tasks in the field. In this task, different land use categories need to be allocated according to multiple criteria. The problem can be formalized in terms of a multiobjective problem. This paper generalizes and complements a previous work on this topic. It presents an algorithm based on a simulated annealing heuristic that optimizes the delimitation of land use categories on a cadastral parcel map according to suitability and compactness criteria. The relative importance of both criteria can be adapted to any particular case. Despite its high computational cost, the use of plot polygons was decided because it is realistic in terms of technical application and land use laws. Due to the computational costs of our proposal, parallel implementations are required, and several approaches for shared memory systems such as multicores are analysed in this paper. Results on a real case study conducted in the Spanish municipality of Guitiriz show that the parallel algorithm based on simulated annealing is a feasible method to design alternative zoning maps. Comparisons with results from experts are reported, and they show a high similarity. Results from our strategy outperform those by experts in terms of suitability and compactness. The parallel version of the code produces good results in terms of speed-up, which is crucial for taking advantage of the architecture of current multicore processors.Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia; 2013-41129PXunta de Galicia; GRC2014/008Xunta de Galicia; EM2013/04