How does water get to the clouds? Building explanations about state changes in Early Childhood Education

Este estudio de caso en un aula de tercero de educación infantil (23 niñas y niños, 5-6 años, y su maestra) examina la evolución de las explicaciones del alumnado sobre cambios de estado líquido-gas a lo largo de cinco meses de un proyecto escolar de ciencias. Para construir sus explicaciones movilizaron tanto su conocimiento cotidiano como el conocimiento científico escolar. Desarrollaron la capacidad de aplicar el vocabulario científico para explicar sus experiencias cotidianas. El fenómeno de evaporación fue identificado y explicado por el alumnado con mayor facilidad que el fenómeno de condensación. Proponemos una rúbrica para analizar la construcción de explicaciones. Las implicaciones educativas sugieren que es recomendable iniciar el estudio de los cambios de estado en educación infantil, ya que el alumnado reconoce estos fenómenos, los relaciona con su conocimiento cotidiano y es capaz de construir explicaciones que pueden servir de base para desarrollar otras más complejas.This case study in a third year Early Childhood Education (ECE) classroom (23 children, 5-6 years old) and their teacher examines the evolution in children's explanations about state changes between liquid and gas in the course of a school science project that lasted for five months. They mobilized both their everyday and school science knowledge in order to build explanations. They developed the ability to apply scientific vocabulary to account for their everyday experiences. Children identified the phenomenon of evaporation more easily than the condensation. We propose a rubric for the analysis of the construction of explanations. Educational implications suggest that state changes should be addressed from ECE, since children are able to identify these phenomena, relate them to their everyday knowledge and build explanations about them, which may serve as a basis for developing more complex ones

Percepción de los problemas ambientales por el alumnado: los recursos naturales

Se presentan resultados de un estudio da las percepciones del alumnado da ESO y último ciclo de Primaria sobra lea problemas ambientales y en particular sobre lea recursos naturales. 366 alumnos y alumnas de centres da Galicia respondieron a un cuestionario abierto antes y después da la utilización de un comic sobre al agua. Los resultados confirman la hipótesis de que los problemas ambientales percibidos sen mayoritariamente lea relacionados con la degradación del medio y en mucha menor medida con la conservación da les recursos. Se discute también el que significa para el alumnado respetar el medio, y sus dificultadas para aplicar la idea de recurso. Se proponen algunas implicaciones para la enseñanza de las ciencias y la educación ambiental

An Application of Cooperative Game Theory to Distributed Control

18th World CongressThe International Federation of Automatic ControlMilano (Italy) August 28 - September 2, 2011In this paper we propose to study the underlying properties of a given distributed control scheme in which a set of agents switch between different communication strategies that define which network links are used in order to regulate to the origin a set of unconstrained linear systems. The problems of how to decide the time-varying communication strategy, share the benefits/costs and detect which are the most critical links in the network are solved using tools from game theory. The proposed scheme is demonstrated through a simulation example

Interpersonal perceptions of adverse peer experiences in first-grade students

Aim: The aim of this study was to identify which adverse peer experiences better predict perceived negative peer relationships among elementary school first graders according to sex. The peer experiences examined were peer rejection, peer victimization, and mutual antipathy; the interpersonal perceptions studied were perceived peer victimization, dyadic meta-perception of peer disliking, and loneliness. Methods: The participants were 809 children (Mage = 6.4 years, SD = 0.32; ngirls = 412, 50.9%) enrolled in 35 first-grade classes from 15 schools in 4 Spanish regions: Valencia, n = 276, 34.1%; Balearic Islands, n = 140, 17.3%; Andalusia, n = 199, 24.6%; Castile-Leon, n = 194, 24%. We calculated sex differences in peer experiences and interpersonal perceptions by means of one-way ANOVA for means differences and Fisher’s r-to-z transformation for correlations differences. We used a multilevel regression analysis (nesting variables: class and region) to determine whether the associations between each peer experiences and each perception were unique. Results: Each adverse peer relationship predicted each interpersonal perception differentially. Peer victimization was a good predictor of the three interpersonal perceptions, and the only predictor of perceived peer victimization. Peer rejection predicted loneliness, whereas mutual antipathies predicted dyadic meta-perception of peer disliking, although more so among girls. A significant effect at region level was found but not at class level. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that research should take into account the different levels of the social peer system when analyzing peer experiences within the classroom context. The study contributes to sensitize teachers about the greater responsiveness of 6-year-old girls to adverse peer experiences, and it could be useful for designing interventions that would help children oppose rejection and empower active bystanders to fight against peer mistreatment.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España EDU2012-35930Universitat Jaume I P1-1A2012-0

Geothermometrical modelling applied to the CO2-rich thermal waters of the Lanjarón hydrothermal system (Granada, Spain)

[No abstract

A meta-analysis of environmental factor effects on ammonia emissions from dairy cattle houses

[EN] Livestock housing is one of the main sources of ammonia (NH3) emissions from agriculture. Different management and environmental factors are known to affect NH3 emissions from housing systems. The aim of this study was to quantitatively define the effect of temperature, wind speed, relative humidity, and ventilation rate on NH3 release rates from dairy cattle housing by conducting a meta-analysis of published scientific results. A literature survey was performed to review studies published before January 2018 that have identified statistical relationships between NH3 emissions and environmental factors such as air temperature, wind speed, relative humidity, or ventilation rate in dairy cattle housing. Experimental values were related using a mixed model analysis in order to analyse the effect of environmental factors on NH3 emissions. For this exercise, a total of 19 peerreviewed papers were considered and 27 different relations between air temperature and NH3 emissions were used for the analysis. A significant effect of air temperature inside the barn and ventilation rate on NH3 emissions was observed. Results showed that NH3 emissions increased linearly with increasing air temperature (ºC) inside the barn by 1.47 g [NH3] cow 1 d 1 when temperature increased by one degree. For ventilation rate, an increase of 100 m3 h 1 cow 1 led to an increase in NH3 emissions of 0.007 g [NH3] cow 1 d 1 . The equations obtained in this work might help to provide information on NH3 barnrelated emissions behaviour under these environmental conditions, bearing in mind that other source of emissions such as diet composition and animal performance might be also affected by climate changes.This study is part of the project OPTIBARN and was financially supported by the Instituto Nacional de Investigacion y Tecnologia Agraria y Alimentaria through the research grant 618105 FACCE Era Net Plus - Food Security, Agriculture, Climate Change ERA-NET plus. This work has been also funded by the Basque Government through the BERG 2018-2021 program and by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness MINECO through BC3 Maria de Maeztu excellence accreditation MDM-2017-0714.Sanchis Jiménez, EM.; Calvet, S.; Del Prado, A.; Estellés, F. (2019). A meta-analysis of environmental factor effects on ammonia emissions from dairy cattle houses. Biosystems Engineering. 178:176-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2018.11.017S17618317

A New Species of Cyclobulura (Nematoda: Subuluridae) from Zaedyus pichiy and Chaetophractus vellerosus (Xenarthra: Dasypodidae) in Argentina

Cyclobulura superinae n. sp. collected from Zaedyus pichiy and Chaetophractus vellerosus is herein described as the second species in Cyclobulura Quentin, 1977, and the first subulurid in armadillos. The species is unique in the spur-like structures present at the tip of both spicules, yet they conform to the description of Cyclobulura in the structure of the buccal parts. Specimens of the new species show longer chordal lobes and more conspicuous radial lobes and are smaller than specimens of C. lainsoni. In addition, males of C. superinae exhibit a spur-like process in the distal end of the spicules and a shorter tail (170 vs. 300 µm) with no spine. Finally, the eggs of C. superinae are smaller (60-89 × 45-71 vs. 95-100 × 80-85). To our knowledge, the new species is the first subulurid nematode found in an armadillo

Fuzzy motion adaptive algorithm and its hardware implementation for video de-interlacing

Interlacing techniques were introduced in the early analog TV transmission systems as an efficient mechanism capable of halving the video bandwidth. Currently, interlacing is also used by some modern digital TV transmission systems, however, there is a problem at the receiver side since the majority of modern display devices require a progressive scanning. De-interlacing algorithms convert an interlaced video signal into a progressive one by performing interpolation. To achieve good de-interlacing results, dynamical and local image features should be considered. The gradual adaptation of the de-interlacing technique as a function of the level of motion detected in each pixel is a powerful method that can be carried out by means of fuzzy inference. The starting point of our study is an algorithm that uses a fuzzy inference system to evaluate motion locally (FMA algorithm). Our approach is based on convolution techniques to process a fuzzy rulebase for motion-adaptive de-interlacing. Different strategies based on bi-dimensional convolution techniques are proposed. In particular, the algorithm called 'single convolution algorithm' introduces significant advantages: a more accurate measurement of the level of motion using a matrix of weights, and a unique fuzzification process after the global estimation, which reduces the computational cost. Different architectures for the hardware implementation of this algorithm are described in VHDL language. The physical realization is carried out on a RC100 Celoxica FPGA development board. © 2010 Elsevier B.V.Comunidad Europea FP7-INFSO-ICT-248858Gobierno de España TIN2005-08943-C02-01 y TEC2008-04920Junta de Andalucía P08-TIC-0367