Managing Interacting Criteria: Application to Environmental Evaluation Practices

The need for organizations to evaluate their environmental practices has been recently increasing. This fact has led to the development of many approaches to appraise such practices. In this paper, a novel decision model to evaluate company’s environmental practices is proposed to improve traditional evaluation process in different facets. Firstly, different reviewers’ collectives related to the company’s activity are taken into account in the process to increase company internal efficiency and external legitimacy. Secondly, following the standard ISO 14031, two general categories of environmental performance indicators, management and operational, are considered. Thirdly, since the assumption of independence among environmental indicators is rarely verified in environmental context, an aggregation operator to bear in mind the relationship among such indicators in the evaluation results is proposed. Finally, this new model integrates quantitative and qualitative information with different scales using a multi-granular linguistic model that allows to adapt diverse evaluation scales according to appraisers’ knowledge

Physiological drought responses improve predictions of live fuel moisture dynamics in a Mediterranean forest.

The moisture content of live fuels is an important determinant of forest flammability. Current approaches for modelling live fuel moisture content typically focus on the use of drought indices. However, these have mixed success partly because of species-specific differences in drought responses. Here we seek to understand the physiological mechanisms driving changes in live fuel moisture content, and to investigate the potential for incorporating plant physiological traits into live fuel moisture models. We measured the dynamics of leaf moisture content, access to water resources (through stable isotope analyses) and physiological traits (including leaf water potential, stomatal conductance, and cellular osmotic and elastic adjustments) across a fire season in a Mediterranean mixed forest in Catalonia, NE Spain. We found that differences in both seasonal variation and minimum values of live fuel moisture content were a function of access to water resources and plant physiological traits. Specifically, those species with the lowest minimum moisture content and largest seasonal variation in moisture (Cistus albidus: 49–137% and Rosmarinus officinalis: 47–144%) were most reliant on shallow soil water and had the lowest values of predawn leaf water potential. Species with the smallest variation in live fuel moisture content (Pinus nigra: 96–116% and Quercus ilex: 56–91%) exhibited isohydric behaviour (little variation in midday leaf water potential, and relatively tight regulation of stomata in response to soil drying). Of the traits measured, predawn leaf water potential provided the strongest predictor of live fuel moisture content (R2 = 0.63, AIC = 249), outperforming two commonly used drought indices (both with R2 = 0.49, AIC = 258). This is the first study to explicitly link fuel moisture with plant physiology and our findings demonstrate the potential and importance of incorporating ecophysiological plant traits to investigating seasonal changes in fuel moisture and, more broadly, forest flammability.This study was made possible thanks to the collaboration of and the staff from the Natural Park of Poblet, P Sopeña, and the technical staff from MedForLab. This study was funded by the Spanish Government (RYC-2012-10970, AGL2015-69151-R). R. H. Nolan was supported with funding from the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage, via the Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub. We benefitted from critical comments from J Voltas, JM Moreno and L Serrano and instrument loans from R Savín

Sound event localization and detection based on crnn using rectangular filters and channel rotation data augmentation

Sound Event Localization and Detection refers to the problem of identifying the presence of independent or temporally-overlapped sound sources, correctly identifying to which sound class it belongs, estimating their spatial directions while they are active. In the last years, neural networks have become the prevailing method for sound Event Localization and Detection task, with convolutional recurrent neural networks being among the most used systems. This paper presents a system submitted to the Detection and Classification of Acoustic Scenes and Events 2020 Challenge Task 3. The algorithm consists of a convolutional recurrent neural network using rectangular filters, specialized in recognizing significant spectral features related to the task. In order to further improve the score and to generalize the system performance to unseen data, the training dataset size has been increased using data augmentation. The technique used for that is based on channel rotations and reflection on the xy plane in the First Order Ambisonic domain, which allows improving Direction of Arrival labels keeping the physical relationships between channels. Evaluation results on the development dataset show that the proposed system outperforms the baseline results, considerably improving Error Rate and F-score for location-aware detection

Estrategias para la captación de familias acogedoras

Fostering provides children with an opportunity to grow and develop in a family environment until the source of separation from their families is resolved, they are adopted or they emancipate on reaching the age of majority. Finding families ready to look after those children is one of the most important challenges for foster care systems in the next decade. This paper aims to review international procedures for the recruitment of foster families. The most successful recruitment interventions are those aimed at the general population, involving experienced foster parents, using all available resources, and sending objective messages about what this decision entails. Previous research also underlines the need for yearly recruitment and sensitization plans, and assessment systems of the strategies used. Several guidelines are offered in this paper for agencies and managers of foster programs

Challenge based modular education upscaled: piloting and evaluating an implementation procedure

Modular approach in education provides the advantages of student self-pacing, autonomy, and receiving frequent feedback from the instructor. In 2021, the project; CMODE-Up (an Upscaling of the earlier undertaken project Challenge-based Modular On-demand Digital Education) provided evidence-based design principles and an accompanying teacher guide for modular courses in engineering education. A next step towards actually implementing the design framework, is piloting it. In this pilot, we will ask teachers from our university to work with the framework to redesign their course into one or more challenge-based modules. We started off with a short workshop to get teachers motivated to work with us. Teachers were recruited based on willingness and experience with modular courses. During the workshop, the teachers engaged in course design exercises using the design framework. Transcibed audiotapes of the workshop discussions constituted the data for this study. To further improve the framework, the results from the workshop data were combined with results of a descriptive literature review. Relevant articles and conference preceedings were located that can shed light on issues such as design of a course with elective modules. Results collectively will lead to an adapted version of the design framework

Job stress and burnout in residential child care workers in Spain

La finalidad de este estudio es identificar variables relacionadas con el estrés y el síndrome de burnout en educadores de acogimiento residencial, así como las áreas más problemáticas de su trabajo. Se estudió una muestra de 257 profesionales que trabajaban en este sector en España, mediante el CBP (Cuestionario de Burnout para Profesorado), adaptado para educadores. Los resultados permiten detectar las principales fuentes de insatisfacción laboral, así como la incidencia de un mayor grado de estrés que de burnout. Ciertas variables personales y laborales presentaron relaciones significativas con estas medidas

Análisis y diseño preliminar estructural del Colegio Parroquial San Francisco Javier, para una vida útil de 30 años, ubicado en el Municipio de Ciudad Sandino, Managua

El Municipio de Ciudad Sandino, distrito I de la Ciudad de Managua se encuentra ubicado en el kilómetro 12.5 de la carretera Nueva a León, este limita al norte con el Municipio de Mateare y al sur con el Municipio de Managua, al este con el Lago Xolotlán y al Oeste con el Municipio de Mateare y Villa Carlos Fonseca, en la región del pacifico de Nicaragua. Actualmente el Municipio de Ciudad Sandino alberga aproximadamente a 1,500,000 habitantes. El municipio a su vez se divide en 11 zonas que va desde la zona 1 a la zona 7, la zona 8 Barrio Bella Cruz, la zona 9 Barrio Bello Amanecer, la zona 10 Barrio Vista Hermosa y la zona 11 Barrio Enrique Smith, Satélite Asososca, La Gruta Javier, y el área rural del Municipio está dividida en tres comarcas: Trinidad Central Cuajachillo nº 1, Trinidad Central Cuajachillo nº 2 y Filos de Cuajachill

Informe final de prácticas I y II : perfil sociodemográfico de los trabajadores de Silvotecnia S.A.S

RESUMEN: Silvotecnia S.A.S. es una empresa caracterizada por la responsabilidad social y ambiental que posee, en la cual el bienestar y la salud de cada uno de sus trabajadores es fundamental, ya que son estos los que impulsan el crecimiento y desarrollo de la misma; por ello desde el área de bienestar, seguridad y salud en el trabajo, se ha determinado llevar a cabo la identificación del perfil sociodemográfico de las personas que integran la empresa tanto en la oficina principal como en cada uno de los proyectos que la misma impulsa; es pertinente resaltar que esté es el primer perfil sociodemográfico que se realiza en la empresa, por esto se hace relevante y necesario la identificación del mismo. Este perfil se realiza con el ánimo de dar cuenta de las motivaciones, necesidades y características que tienen los trabajadores de la compañía y de este modo obtener la información necesaria y pertinente para dar paso a la formulación y posterior implementación del plan de bienestar laboral de la empresa. Por otra parte se hace necesario presentar la estructura de este documento, cuyo propósito es dar cuenta del proceso de prácticas y de la realización del perfil sociodemográfico y ocupacional de los trabajadores de Silvotecnia S.A.S., lo cual, se evidencia a través de doce componentes

Satisfaccion marital

tesis LicenciaturaLa relación conyugal ha adquirido un significado especial para cada uno de los miembros que conforman dicha pareja puesto que representa un vínculo interpersonal de conductas, afectos, emociones y dinámicas que en virtud de su presencia caracterizan y describen a cada uno de los integrantes y a la relación que conforman (Vidal, 2005). Por lo que se considera que la pareja representa la relación interpersonal que brinda el mayor grado de intimidad psicológica (Huston y Levinger, 1978, en Arias-Galicia, 2003). La presente investigación tiene como objetivo conocer cuál es el nivel de satisfacción marital en mujeres de 20 a 30 años y a su vez identificar los principales factores que influyen en la satisfacción marital. Para la obtención de los resultados se trabajó con una población de 76 mujeres que se encontraran inscritas en el programa de apoyo gubernamental “Oportunidades”, con una edad mínima de 20 años, y que por lo menos tuvieran un año de estar civilmente casadas. Para adquirir los resultados se aplicó el inventario Multifacético de Satisfacción Marital (IMSM), elaborado por cortes, Reyes, Díaz Loving, Rivera y Monjaraz (1994), es una escala tipo Likert que consta de 48 reactivos trata de indagar en 6 de las áreas más importantes de la satisfacción marital (Área físico-sexual, interacción, organización y funcionamiento, diversión, familia, hijos). El instrumento contiene cinco opciones de respuesta que son: me gusta mucho, me gusta, no me gusta ni me disgusta, me disgusta y me disgusta mucho. Los resultados obtenidos de esta investigación señalan que un 25% de las mujeres encuestadas se encuentran con una alta satisfacción marital, esto quiere decir, que se sienten plenamente satisfechas en su relación, mientras que un 50% de la población presenta una satisfacción marital moderada, pues consideran que el contacto físico es una necesidad fisiológica que fortalecen los lazos de amor y un 25% de las mujeres se encuentran en una baja satisfacción marital esto significa que no se sienten felices en su matrimonioCentro Universitario UAEM Ext. Tejupilc