The new wold-wide geo-economic older: Proverty of Africa and its factors

La pobreza de África en su conjunto, y sobre todo de la situada al Sur del Sahara, es resultado directo de los efectos adversos del capitalismo en su fase de globalización, incidiendo de una forma negativa en las posibilidades del crecimiento económico y progreso humano y social. La consecuencia es un empobrecimiento creciente que limita, e incluso detiene el progreso social y económico, paralizando el mismo desarrollo general de la sociedad, de manera que hay dos grandes brechas: la primera, la del continente africano en su conjunto con respecto al Primer Mundo, y la segunda, de reciente aparición, una vez se rompió el orden bipolar, que separa cada vez más a África Subsahariana, empobrecida (en muchas de cuyas regiones se ha paralizado el mismo crecimiento y desarrollo económicos), y la Septentrional, que ha hallado, lentamente, las vías del desarrollo humano. El resultado es la exportación, mediante los flujos migratorios, de fuerza de trabajo barata, hacia el Primer Mundo, que cumple la función no solo de obtención de tasas de beneficio más elevadas sino también el de regular, controlar y flexibilizar el mercado de trabajo, al tiempo que evita el aumento desmedido de la presión salarial y de la reivindicación sindical en los países receptores.Poverty on the whole of Africa and especially below the Sahara Desert becomes a direct result of the negative effects of capitalism, in its globalization phase, affecting in a very negative way in its economic growth as well as in its human and social progress. The consequence is an increasing impoverishment which limits and even detains the social and economic progress, stopping the general development of the society. Due to this fact two big splits can be found: first one in Africa on the whole with regard to the developed countries; second one which appeared recently, once the bipolar order failed, dividing more and more to the impoverished Sub-Saharan Africa (the growth and economic development have been paralysed); second one the Northern Africa which has found slowly a solution through human development. The result is the export, through migratory flows towards the developed countries of cheap labour force. With this migratory flow Northern Africa obtains not only bigger benefits but also regulates controls and softens the labour market. At the same time avoids fiscal pressure and social union unrest in the destination countries

La pauta poblacional de África: los desiguales niveles de la transición demográfica

Delay in demographic development of Africa in its entirety and, especially, southerly from Sahara, is directly caused by poverty; that delay falls in a negative way upon possibilities of economic growth and social and human progress. The reasons are not only restrictive factors of high fecundity, strong demographic growth, low schooling and terribly high illiteracy, but also another, until now, less considered factor: the main causes of mortality, HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis spark off additional health expenditure and productivity fall, slowing down human development. The result is an increasing impoverishment that limits and even holds up demographic and social progress, paralysing the incipient epidemiologic transition and, actually, the demographic transition itself. There are, consequently, two grate gaps: first, the African continent in its entirety in relation to the First World; recently appeared, the second gap separates more and more impoverished Subsahariana Africa —with many regions where health transition collapsed— from Northern Africa, who has founded his way towards human development, with demographic transition already in its second phase.El retraso del desarrollo demográfico de África en su conjunto, y sobre todo de la situada al Sur del Sahara, es resultado directo de la pobreza y aquél incide de una forma negativa en las posibilidades del crecimiento económico y progreso humano y social. Y no solo por los factores limitativos de la alta fecundidad, del fuerte crecimiento demográfico, de la escasa escolarización y elevadísimo analfabetismo, sino también por un factor hasta ahora poco señalado: las principales causas de mortalidad, VIH/SIDA, malaria y tuberculosis provocan un gasto añadido en salud y un descenso de la productividad, ralentizando el desarrollo humano. El resultado es un empobrecimiento creciente que limita, e incluso detiene el progreso demográfico y social, paralizando la incipiente transición epidemiológica, y también la transición demográfica misma, de manera que hay dos grandes brechas: la primera, la del continente africano en su conjunto con respecto al Primer Mundo, y la segunda, de reciente aparición, que separa cada vez más a África Subsahariana, empobrecida, en muchas de cuyas regiones se ha paralizado la transición sanitaria, y la Septentrional, que ha hallado las vías del desarrollo humano, con una transición demográfica ya en una fase avanzada

Los factores del desarrollo socioeconómico y territorial de Marruecos: la aportación de las remesas de sus emigrantes

In this work we approach the socioeconomic, human and territorial development of Morocco from the 1980s, but mainly from the mid 90s, because the migratory flow intensifies and leads to a spectacular increase of income due to the remittances of the Moroccan residents abroad. This flow of capitals acts on several levels, both on micro and macroeconomics, which are interrelated and have a bearing on the economic takeoff, both human and territorial, although the imbalances between urban and rural spheres are enormous. We must add to this the economic policy of the government with the implementation of the Plan of Emergency of 2005, which seeks the specialization and the economies of scale in the industry, and the so called Azur Plan, for the development of tourism, that grows at a fast rate, and which has the objective of making tourism the locomotive of services and of the economy in general.Abordamos en este trabajo el desarrollo socioeconómico, humano y territorial de Marruecos desde la década de los 80 del siglo pasado pero sobre todo a partir de mediados de los 90, porque el flujo migratorio se intensifica y se traduce en un aumento espectacular de los ingresos por remesas de los residentes marroquíes en el extranjero. Este flujo de capitales actúa en varios planos, el micro y el macroeconómico, los cuales, interrelacionados, inciden en el despegue económico, humano y territorial, aunque los desequilibrios entre el medio urbano y el rural son muy grandes. A ello se debe añadir la política económica del gobierno, con la implementación del Plan de Emergencia de 2005, buscando la especialización y las economías de escala en la industria, y el denominado Plan Azur, para el desarrollo del turismo, que crece de una forma rápida, y cuyo objetivo es la conversión del mismo en locomotora de los servicios y de la economía en general.Dans ce travail, nous abordons le développement socio-économique, humain et territorial du Maroc à partir des années 80 du siècle dernier, et plus particulièrement à partir de la moitié des années 90, car on asiste alors a une intensification du flux migratoire qui se traduit par une hausse spectaculaire des revenus par transferts de fonds des marocains résidant à l’étranger. Ce flux de capitaux agit sur plusieurs plans, le microéconomique et le macroéconomique, dont l’interaction a une incidence sur le décollage économique, humain et territorial, malgré de grands déséquilibres entre les milieux urbain et rural. Il faut ajouter à cela la politique économique du gouvernement, avec l’implémentation du Plan d’Urgence de 2005 qui poursuit la spécialisation et les économies d’échelle dans l’industrie, et du dénommé Plan Azur pour le développement du tourisme, en pleine croissance, dont l’objectif est la conversion de celui-ci en élément moteur du secteur service et de l’économie en général

Eco‐Holonic 4.0 Circular Business Model to Conceptualize Sustainable Value Chain Towards Digital Transition

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a circular business model based on an Eco-Holonic Architecture, through the integration of circular economy and holonic principles. A conceptual model is developed to manage the complexity of integrating circular economy principles, digital transformation, and tools and frameworks for sustainability into business models. The proposed architecture is multilevel and multiscale in order to achieve the instantiation of the sustainable value chain in any territory. The architecture promotes the incorporation of circular economy and holonic principles into new circular business models. This integrated perspective of business model can support the design and upgrade of the manufacturing companies in their respective industrial sectors. The conceptual model proposed is based on activity theory that considers the interactions between technical and social systems and allows the mitigation of the metabolic rift that exists between natural and social metabolism. This study contributes to the existing literature on circular economy, circular business models and activity theory by considering holonic paradigm concerns, which have not been explored yet. This research also offers a unique holonic architecture of circular business model by considering different levels, relationships, dynamism and contextualization (territory) aspects

¿Conocía Sherlock Holmes la teoría de grafos?

En este artículo se muestran las ventajas que ofrece la Teoría de Grafos a la hora de resolver determinados problemas clásicos de Matemáticas, que normalmente se suelen intentar probando una a una las diferentes posibilidades existentes, o bien por el conocido método de la “cuenta de la vieja”. Su principal objetivo es mostrar cómo esta Teoría facilita una gran cantidad de estrategias útiles para la resolución de estos problemas, de manera más rápida, elegante y sencilla de la habitual. Uno de estos problemas trata precisamente de cómo Sherlock Holmes pudo resolver un caso de asesinato, utilizando los grafos.In this paper, we show the advantages offered by Graph Theory to solve some classic mathematical problems, which are normally solved by using other non systematic techniques, such that to go one to one testing different possibilities or to use what in Spain is called “la cuenta de la vieja”. Its main goal is to show how Graph Theory allows to systematize and formalize a lot of useful strategies to find the solution of those problems in an easier, smarter and faster way than usual. One of these problems deals with the solution given by Sherlock Holmes to a case of murder by using graphs

Upper-limb kinematic parameter estimation and localization using a compliant robotic manipulator.

Assistive and rehabilitation robotics have gained momentum over the past decade and are expected to progress significantly in the coming years. Although relevant and promising research advances have contributed to these fields, challenges regarding intentional physical contact with humans remain. Despite being a fundamental component of assistive and rehabilitation tasks, there is an evident lack of work related to robotic manipulators that intentionally manipulate human body parts. Moreover, existing solutions involving end-effector robots are not based on accurate knowledge of human limb dimensions and their current configuration. This knowledge, which is essential for safe human–limb manipulation, depends on the grasping location and human kinematic parameters. This paper addresses the upper-limb manipulation challenge and proposes a pose estimation method using a compliant robotic manipulator. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to address this challenge. A kinesthetic-based approach enables estimation of the kinematic parameters of the human arm without integrating external sensors. The estimation method relies only on proprioceptive data obtained from a collaborative robot with a Cartesian impedance-based controller to follow a compliant trajectory that depends on human arm kinodynamics. The human arm model is a 2-degree of freedom (DoF) kinematic chain. Thus, prior knowledge of the arm’s behavior and an estimation method enables estimation of the kinematic parameters. Two estimation methods are implemented and compared: i) Hough transform (HT); ii) least squares (LS). Furthermore, a resizable, sensorized dummy arm is designed for experimental validation of the proposed approach. Outcomes from six experiments with different arm lengths demonstrate the repeatability and effectiveness of the proposed methodology, which can be used in several rehabilitation robotic applications

Conversiones entre sistemas de representación trigonométricos por profesores de secundaria en formación

Understanding trigonometry relational system is a school mathemat-ics demanding topic. The angle, the unit circle and the trigonometric functions are its foundational notions. Trigonometric contents mean-ing and their understanding involve these three concepts and their re-lationships. This research aims to deepen in the pre-service teachers’ understanding about the angle, the unit circle and the trigonometric function when converting notions between two trigonometric repre-sentation systems based on the unit circle and the trigonometric func-tions. The results indicate that pre-service mathematics teachers’ pre-sent a lack of connections between the goniometric and the analytical representation system.Comprender el sistema relacional de trigonometría es un tópico exi-gente en las matemáticas escolares. El ángulo, el círculo unitario y las funciones trigonométricas son sus nociones fundamentales. El significado de los contenidos trigonométricos y su comprensión invo-lucran estos tres conceptos y sus relaciones. Esta investigación tiene como objetivo profundizar en la comprensión de los profesores en formación sobre el ángulo, la circunferencia goniométrica y la fun-ción trigonométrica al convertir nociones entre dos sistemas de re-presentación trigonométrica basados en el círculo unitario y las fun-ciones trigonométricas. Los resultados indican que los profesores en formación presentan una carencia de conexiones entre los sistemas de representación analítico y goniométrico

Esterification of Free Fatty Acids with Glycerol within the Biodiesel Production Framework

Companies in the field of the collection and treatment of waste cooking oils (WCO) for subsequent biodiesel production usually have to cope with high acidity oils, which cannot be directly transformed into fatty acid methyl esters due to soap production. Since glycerine is the main byproduct of biodiesel production, these high acidity oils could be esterified with the glycerine surplus to transform the free fatty acids (FFA) into triglycerides before performing the transesterification. In this work, commercial glycerol was esterified with commercial fatty acids and commercial fatty acid/lampante olive oil mixtures over tin (II) chloride. In the first set of experiments, the esterification of linoleic acid with glycerol excess from 20 to 80% molar over the stoichiometric was performed. From 20% glycerol excess, there was no improvement in FFA reduction. Using 20% glycerol excess, the performance of a biochar obtained from heavy metal-contaminated plant roots was compared to that of SnCl2. Then, the effect of the initial FFA content was assessed using different oleic acid/lampante olive oil mixtures. The results illustrated that glycerolysis was impeded at initial FFA contents lower than 10%. Finally, the glycerolysis of a WCO with 9.94% FFA was assayed, without success

Vision based behaviors for a legged robot

This article describes two vision-based behaviors designed for an autonomous legged robot. These behaviors have been designed in a modular way in order to be able to integrate them in an architecture named DSH (Dynamic Schema Hierarchies), which is also briefly described. These behaviors have been tested in office indoor environments and experiments carried out are also described in this paper. The platform used in these experiments carried out are also described in theis paper. The platform used in these experiments has been the Sony AIBO robot. The developed behaviors provide the robot with the follow wall and follow person capabilities, using as main sensor the robot on-board camer