Unbounded B-Fredholm operators on Hilbert spaces

This paper is concerned with the study of a class of closed linear operators densely defined on a Hilbert space H and called B-Fredholm operators. We characterize a B-Fredholm operator as the direct sum of a Fredholm closed operator and a bounded nilpotent operator. The notion of an index of a B-Fredholm operator is introduced and a characterization of B-Fredholm operators with index 0 is given in terms of the sum of a Drazin closed operator and a finite-rank operator. We analyse the properties of the powers Tm of a closed B-Fredholm operator and we establish a spectral mapping theorem

El desarrollo de la relación teoría y práctica en el grado de maestro en educación primaria.

The relationship between theory and practice has major implications in teacher training, improving teaching practices and professional development. This article explores how future teachers and their trainers perceive the dichotomy between theory and practice while undertaking a Primary Education Degree programme. Ore specifically, the following questions were posed with a view to gaining some insight into how to bridge the gap between theory and practice in teacher training: - How is the theory-practice relationship approached in the teacher training setting? - How does theory-practice coordination influence the development of practical knowledge in future teachers? - Which aspects of teacher training foster greater theory-practice coordination and which hinder it? A qualitative methodology was used based on the study of multiple cases, and data collection techniques included in-depth interviews, discussion groups and stories. Various groups involved in the degree course (students, teachers and school tutors) participated in the study. The results allow to identify as main problems an overly fragmented and theoretical curriculum, coexistence of confronted epistemological conceptions, lack of connection between curriculum and real practice, among other issues. Finally, we may conclude that although progress has been made compared with previous curricular programmes, the theory versus practice relationship has yet to be fully, meaningfully and jointly developed in the initial teacher training setting

Flow injection determination of readily assimilable nitrogen compounds during vinification

A flow injection method for the determination of readily assimilable nitrogen (r.a.n.), i.e. ammonium and aminated nitrogen, is reported. The difference in pH of the sample in the presence and absence of formaldehyde, which blocks the amino function, provides the value of r.a.n. by monitoring the changes in absorbance of bromothymol blue at 616 nm. The detection and quantification limits are 10 and 11.6 mg l-1, respectively; the reproducibility and repeatability are 3.94 mg l-1 and 1.35 mg l-1, respectively; and the sample throughput is 20 samples h-1. The method has been applied to the analysis of 120 samples of must and wine subjected to biological aging. The proposed method also provides good correlation with the reference method used in routine analysis, and it is faster and gives sufficient precision for wineries requirements

Web based system architecture for long pulse remote experimentation

Remote experimentation (RE) methods will be essential in next generation fusion devices. Requirements for long pulse RE will be: on-line data visualization, on-line data acquisition processes monitoring and on-line data acquisition systems interactions (start, stop or set-up modifications). Note that these methods are not oriented to real-time control of fusion plant devices. INDRA Sistemas S.A., CIEMAT (Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas Medioambientales y Tecnológicas) and UPM (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) have designed a specific software architecture for these purposes. The architecture can be supported on the BeansNet platform, whose integration with an application server provides an adequate solution to the requirements. BeansNet is a JINI based framework developed by INDRA, which makes easy the implementation of a remote experimentation model based on a Service Oriented Architecture. The new software architecture has been designed on the basis of the experience acquired in the development of an upgrade of the TJ-II remote experimentation system

Effects of form and motion on judgments of social robots' animacy, likability, trustworthiness and unpleasantness

One of robot designers' main goals is to make robots as sociable as possible. Aside from improving robots' actual social functions, a great deal of effort is devoted to making them appear lifelike. This is often achieved by endowing the robot with an anthropomorphic body. However, psychological research on the perception of animacy suggests another crucial factor that might also contribute to attributions of animacy: movement characteristics. In the current study, we investigated how the combination of bodily appearance and movement characteristics of a robot can alter people's attributions of animacy, likability, trustworthiness, and unpleasantness. Participants played games of Tic-Tac-Toe against a robot which (1) either possessed a human form or did not, and (2) either exhibited smooth, lifelike movement or did not. Naturalistic motion was judged to be more animate than mechanical motion, but only when the robot resembled a human form. Naturalistic motion improved likeability regardless of the robot's appearance. Finally, a robot with a human form was rated as more disturbing when it moved naturalistically. Robot designers should be aware that movement characteristics play an important role in promoting robots' apparent animacy.This work was partially supported by the Spanish Government through the project call "Aplicaciones de los robots sociales", DPI2011-26980 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Álvaro Castro-González was partially supported by a grant from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Determination of Arsenic, Mercury and Barium in herbarium mount paper using dynamic ultrasound-assisted extraction prior to atomic fluorescence and absorption spectrometry

A dynamic ultrasound-assisted extraction method using Atomic Absorption and Atomic Flourescence spectrometers as detectors was developed to analyse mercury, arsenic and barium from herbarium mount paper originating from the herbarium collection of the National Museum of Wales. The variables influencing extraction were optimised by a multivariate approach. The optimal conditions were found to be 1% HNO3 extractant solution used at a flow rate of 1 mL min-1. The duty cycle and amplitude of the ultrasonic probe was found to be 50% in both cases with an ultrasound power of 400 W. The optimal distance between the probe and the top face of the extraction chamber was found to be 0 cm. Under these conditions the time required for complete extraction of the three analytes was 25 min. Cold vapour and hydride generation coupled to atomic fluorescence spectrometry was utilized to determine mercury and arsenic, respectively. The chemical and instrumental conditions were optimized to provide detection limits of 0.01ng g-1 and 1.25 ng g-1 for mercury and arsenic, respectively. Barium was determined by graphite-furnace atomic absorption spectrometry, with a detection limit of 25 ng g-1. By using 0.5 g of sample, the concentrations of the target analytes varied for the different types of paper and ranged between 0.4–2.55 µg g-1 for Ba, 0.035–10.47 µg g-1 for As and 0.0046–2.37 µg g-1 for Hg

Kinetic studies of the release profiles of antiepileptic drug released from a nanostructured TiO2 matrix.

In this paper is reported the “in vitro†release kinetic studies of antiepileptic drugs released from an inorganic, titanium oxide (TiO2) porous matrix. In order to determine the drug release mechanism, the experimental values were fitted to different mathematical models: zero-order, firs-order, Higuchi, Hixson-Crowel and Peppas. TiO2 was prepared by the sol-gel method adding valproic acid (VPA) or phenytoine (DHP) during the titanium n-butoxide hydrolysis step. The drug-TiO2 systems were observed by scanning electron microscopy. The “in vitro†release experiments were performed at laboratory scale following the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) standards. The obtained materials have a morphology of nanoparticle agglomerates. The particles have different sizes with some roughness and spherical shape. Peppas model suggests for both systems, that the release mechanism is controlled by two parallel processes. The first one is by diffusion of the drug through the matrix and the second is related to a gradient of constant diffusion by ingress of the solvent in the matrix