Sustainability and New Technologies

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Online games for the teaching of mathematics

In this article we present a didactic experience developed by the GIE (Group of Educational Innovation) “Pensamiento Matemático” of the Polytechnics University of Madrid (UPM), in order to bring secondary students and university students closer to Mathematics. It deals with the development of a virtual board game called Mate-trivial. The mechanics of the game is to win points by going around the board which consists of four types of squares identified by colours: “Statistics and Probability”, “Calculus and Analysis”, “Algebra and Geometry” and “Arithmetic and Number Theory ”. When landing on a square, a question of its category is set out: a correct answer wins 200 points, if wrong it loses 100 points, and not answering causes no effect on the points, but all the same, two minutes out of the 20 minutes that each game lasts are lost. For the game to be over it is necessary, before those 20 minutes run out, to reach the central square and succeed in the final task: four chained questions, one of each type, which must be all answered correctly. It is possible to choose between two levels to play: Level 1, for pre-university students and Level 2 for university students. A prototype of the game is available at the website “Aula de Pensamiento Matemático” developed by the GIE: http://innovacioneducativa.upm.es/pensamientomatematico/. This activity lies within a set of didactic actions which the GIE is developing in the framework of the project “Collaborative Strategies between University and Secondary School Education for the teaching and learning of Mathematics: An Application to solve problems while playing”, a transversal project financed by the UPM

The sexualization of mass culture from Edgar Morin’s analytical approach

Proponemos en este trabajo un examen crítico de la teoría de la cultura de masas del pensador francés Edgar Morin con el fin de progresar en la comprensión de la sexualización creciente de los productos culturales. La tendencia a la sexualización es consustancial al sector industrial de la cultura, bien por las funciones proyectivas esenciales de las producciones culturales, bien por las circunstancias y fines de la moderna producción cultural. La orientación a un público masivo lleva a emprender procesos de sincretización de los productos culturales, de modo que se introducen componentes diversos en todos ellos para ampliar y facilitar el consumo cotidiano, siendo la sexualidad uno de los factores básicos de sincretización. Además, se considera el análisis de la cultura de masas como resultado de la integración de la cultura popular moderna y la cultura burguesa. La base popular marca la tendencia a una orientación proyectiva-evasiva, que trata de experimentar una vida más intensa (y entre los factores que la facilitan se encuentra la satisfacción sexual). La base burguesa tiende, por el contrario, a la identificación con los personajes, a introducir imaginarios humanos realistas muy cercanos a los espectadores, lo que ha provocado la generalización del happy end en la cultura de masas y con ello la eliminación de los elementos trágicos en el imaginario. No obstante, siendo la tragedia necesaria a todo grupo humano, ha logrado encontrar expresión en el ámbito de las informaciones, especialmente en los sucesos, lo que permite entender la espectacularización de los delitos sexuales.In this paper we propose a critical analysis about the theory of the eroticization of mass culture outlined by Edgar Morin, emphasizing the relevance of his analytical perspective. According to this approach, the trend towards sexualisation of contents would be intrinsic to industrial cultures. On the one hand, due to its psychoanalytic influence, it is considered that every cultural production has found, in the projective psychosocial functions, a good part of their raison d’être, even though sexual or violent projections are masked or otherwise justified. On the other, because of some of the circumstances and purposes of modern industrial cultural production: first, we point out that the mass audience orientation leads to the implementation of syncretisation processes of cultural products, so that they introduce diverse components in all of them to expanding the mass media audience and facilitate daily consumption, being sexuality one of the basic factors of syncretisation; second, because the popular basis of culture will sharpen the projective-evasive orientation towards culture, so that products will show a more intense and perfect life in which secular satisfaction cannot be lacking; third, because the radicalization of the identification link to the characters derived from the bourgeois dominant of the cultural industry will force to remove the tragic aspects of the creations, leading to the displacement of these aspects to the field of information and events, which allows us to understand the performance of real sexual violence, amongst others

Scour prediction and scour protections in offshore wind farms

This paper is the result of research whose main objective is to analyse different methods used for the prediction of maximum scour depth and scour extension, and for the design of scour protections in offshore wind farms located in shallow water, using medium and large diameter monopile foundations. Physical agents such as waves, currents and wind play a major role in the design of structures like offshore farms. As a result, the study has highlighted the need for introducing experience backed climate monomials such as the dimensionless wave height parameter (H0) and proposes the use of formulations that can express the extent of scour protections as a function of waves in transitional waters

The JNK inhibitor, SP600125, potentiates the glial response and cell death induced by methamphetamine in the mouse striatum

This study investigates the effect of the selective Jun NH2-terminal kinase 1/2 (JNK1/2) inhibitor, (SP600125) on the striatal dopamine nerve terminal loss and on the increased interleukin-15 (IL-15) expression and glial response induced by methamphetamine (METH). Mice were given repeated low doses of METH (4Â mg/kg, i.p., three times separated by 3Â h) and killed 24Â h or 7 d after the last dose. SP600125 (30Â mg/kg, i.p) was administered 30Â min before the last METH injection. Results indicate that METH produced dopaminergic axonal neurotoxicity reflected as a marked decrease in the striatal density of tyrosine hydroxylase-immunoreactive (TH-ir) fibres and dopamine transporter-immunoreactivity (DAT-ir) 24Â h after dosing. These effects were not modified by SP600125. This compound also failed to prevent the long-term loss of dopamine levels and DAT observed 7 d following METH injection. Nevertheless, SP600125 potentiated METH-induced striatal cell loss reflected by an increase in Fluoro-Jade immunostaining, cleaved capase-3 immunoreactivity and the number of terminal deoxyncleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labelling (TUNEL) positive cells. In line with a deleterious effect of JNK1/2 inhibition, SP600125 increased the astroglial and microglial response induced by METH and interfered with drug-induced IL-15 expression. Together these data indicate that, not only does SP600125 fail to protect against the dopaminergic damage induced by METH but also, in fact, it potentiates the glial response and the non-dopaminergic striatal cell loss caused by the drug. © 2013 CINP.Peer Reviewe

Research in Mathematics Education in Spain: SEIEM Symposia

Spain produces a large amount of research in mathematics education and its results are presented in the symposia of the Spanish Society for Research in Mathematics Education (SEIEM). This paper presents a study of the proceedings of these symposia. Its aim is to identify some bibliometric indicators and networks of institutional collaboration and co-authorship. The analysis was performed with 268 SEIEM documents. We found a low level of scientific collaboration between researchers in the field. Similar results are obtained for international cooperationEn España se realizan un gran número de investigaciones en Educación Matemática y se presentan avances de sus resultados en los simposios de la Sociedad Española de Investigación en Educación Matemática (SEIEM). En este artículo se presenta un estudio de las actas de dichos simposios. El objetivo de este trabajo es identificar algunos indicadores bibliométricos así como las redes de colaboración institucional y de coautoría. El análisis se realizó con 268 documentos de las actas SEIEM, observándose un bajo porcentaje de colaboración científica entre los investigadores del área. También se obtienen similares resultados en la cooperación internaciona

Continuous harmonic analysis and power quality measurements in three-phase systems

A virtual instrument, named Power Quality Meter, is presented for (a) measuring power consumption and harmonics in three-phase systems, under non-sinusoidal and imbalance conditions (b) detecting, classifying and organizes power disturbance events. Measurement of the power consumption follows the formulation proposed by the members of the IEEE Working Group on Nonsinusoidal Situations (1996). So, definitions are based on the analysis of functions in the frequency domain, separating the fundamental terms from the harmonic terms of the Fourier series. The virtual instrument has been developed too for monitoring and measuring power disturbances, which are automatically classified and organized in a database while they are being recorded. Software tools use the database structure to present summaries of power disturbances and locate an event by severity or time of occurrence. Records of actual measurements are included to demonstrate the versatility of the instrument

La evaluación docente en clave reflexiva: propuesta de metodología de auto-evaluación de la docencia

Memoria resultado del proyecto de innovación de la UCM. Convocatoria 2016-17

Field campaign on pressure on the crown wall at the outer port of Punta Langosteira breakwater

[Abstract:] Punta Langosteira port, located in A Coruña (Spain), was monitored during the winters of 2017 and 2018, measuring wave pressure in the crown wall structure. Furthermore, the metocean variables were measured on a buoy located very close to the breakwater. This paper presents the real pressures measured at the crown wall of the breakwater during different storm events. These values are compared with the results of the application of state-of-the-art equations for the calculation of pressures on crown walls. The results obtained show the behaviour of the pressures with a crown wall fully protected by the armour, as is the case of Langosteira breakwater. Finally, several conclusions are made on the methodology for measuring the pressures using physical models and the relevance of the armour roughness.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT); PTDC/ECI-EGC/31090/201

Diseño de protecciones para el control de la socavación en parques eólicos marinos

La presente investigación se basa en el análisis de los diferentes criterios empleados hasta la fecha para el dimensionamiento de las protecciones frente a la socavación presentes en parques eólicos marinos monopilotados. A través de la revisión que se realizó sobre las recomendaciones de diseño existentes se detectó una gran carencia de criterios basados en parámetros característicos del oleaje. En este sentido, considerando la importancia que las acciones del oleaje tienen tanto en el desarrollo del fenómeno de la socavación alrededor de las cimentaciones, como en su propio diseño, se propone el empleo de un nuevo criterio basado en variables caracteristicas del oleaje, y la clasificación de dichas estructuras de acuerdo a la propuesta que Van der Meer realizó en su tesis (Van der Meer, 1988)