Grid Global Behavior Prediction

Complexity has always been one of the most important issues in distributed computing. From the first clusters to grid and now cloud computing, dealing correctly and efficiently with system complexity is the key to taking technology a step further. In this sense, global behavior modeling is an innovative methodology aimed at understanding the grid behavior. The main objective of this methodology is to synthesize the grid's vast, heterogeneous nature into a simple but powerful behavior model, represented in the form of a single, abstract entity, with a global state. Global behavior modeling has proved to be very useful in effectively managing grid complexity but, in many cases, deeper knowledge is needed. It generates a descriptive model that could be greatly improved if extended not only to explain behavior, but also to predict it. In this paper we present a prediction methodology whose objective is to define the techniques needed to create global behavior prediction models for grid systems. This global behavior prediction can benefit grid management, specially in areas such as fault tolerance or job scheduling. The paper presents experimental results obtained in real scenarios in order to validate this approach

Safeguarding Health at the Workplace: A Study of Work Engagement, Authenticity and Subjective Wellbeing among Religious Workers

: Research in work and organizational psychology has paid little attention to religious workers, something certainly surprising as faith-based organizations play a key role in the welfare state of many countries. This research shows that religious workers in a Catholic order present a high degree of subjective wellbeing, both in terms of flourishing and satisfaction with life in general, and a positive balance of positive and negative feelings. More specifically, this study examines the relationship between authenticity and wellbeing amongst religious workers. Survey responses from 142 religious workers in Spain were analyzed using partial least squares path modelling. The results reveal that subjective wellbeing at work is positively related to authenticity. In addition, this relationship is mediated by their level of work engagement

Market Opportunities of Water Treatments Powered by Solar Micro Gas Turbines: Chile and Ecuador Case Studies

Throughout the last decades the developments on desalination field have been focused on energy consumption and costs reduction. However, water recovery and brine disposal are becoming a matter of concern to desalination industry. In this work, a Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) unit coupled with a Solar Micro Gas Turbine (SMGT) system is presented to address, among others, the challenges of mining industry in remote areas, in particular, fossil fuel dependence, water availability and pollution derived from effluents disposal. As a way to assess the feasibility of the proposal, a techno-economic analysis of the application in two Southern American regions (Chile and Ecuador) of photovoltaic modules, wind turbines and Solar Micro Gas Turbines is performed. Afterwards, the main novel feature of the new system—i.e., the ZLD unit—is described and a sensitivity analysis on its functioning whilst coupled with the SMGT is carried out. The aim is to propose a preliminary design of the ZLD process. The selection of the optimal ratio between exhaust gases and brine mass flow rates is analyzed, as well as variation in inlet salinity and temperatures. Furthermore, the water which could be recovered from effluents, at the same time that the heat of exhaust gases from SMGT is harvested, is quantified. Lastly, according to the results obtained, a preliminary design of a 10 kWe rated power SMGT system, coupled to Reverse Osmosis (RO) and ZLD units, is proposed.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades - Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) - Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) RTI2018-102196-B-100FEDER - Interreg Atlantic Area (EERES4WATER project) EAPA 1058/2018Universidad de Sevilla 2019/0000035

Evolution of life expectancy at birth in French departements over the period 1833-1982

This paper deals with spatial aspects of trends in life expectancy at birth in the French metropolitan departements over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Data from the censuses conducted from 1833 to 1982 were used to calculate the life expectancy at birth for both sexes togheter, . The overall fertility index (I-f), marital fertility index (I-g) and nuptiality index (I-m) were also calculated for each 5-year period within the same time span. The analysis has two facets: a first, descriptive part in which we establish clusters of departements with similar or different patterns of evolution over the period above mentioned; and a second part in which the effect of covariables in changes in are examined. In addition their coefficients were interpreted including the direct and spatial spillover effects. Unlike earlier studies, in which a spatio-temporal analysis was performed, the time function showing changes in is reduced to a single value which measures the distance or affinity between the functions of time in each departement, which enables us to carry out an exploratory spatial data analysis and apply spatial econometric models.Jesús J. Sánchez-Barricarte is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain (grant CSO2012-31206) and Autonomous Community of Madrid (grant H2015/HUM-3321). Patricia Carracedo and Ana Debón are supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (grant MTM2013-45381-P). Adina Iftimi is supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (grant FPU12/04 531) and Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (grant MTM2016-78917-R). Francisco Montes is supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (grants MTM2013-45381-P, MTM2016-78917-R)

Work Engagement and Flourishing at Work Among Nuns: The Moderating Role of Human Values

Faith-based organizations are a key player in major sectors of activity for maintaining the welfare state, including health, education, and social services. This paper uses a multivariate regression model in an attempt to identify the factors that affect the relationship between work engagement and flourishing. The paper also discusses the empirical research gap that has been identified in the literature about the moderated effect of human values on this relationship. This study is based on a sample of 142 nuns of a congregation belonging to a religious organization with an international scope and a Catholic inspiration. The case of religious women who have chosen to live a life consistent with the charism of the congregation constitutes a paradigmatic and unique environment to investigate the potential alignment of personal values with professional activity. This work unveils two main findings. First, the more engaged nuns are in their work (social action to serve the poorest and most disadvantaged people), the more they flourish in their working environment and in their personal lives. Second, Schwartz’s values reinforce the relationship between the professional role (work engagement) and the personal role (flourishing at work). In conclusion, flourishing at work could be improved through work engagement and this relationship is moderated by human values. These results add insights to better know the relationship among life and work domains

Medium-frequency electrical resistance sintering of oxidized C.P. iron powder

Commercially pure (C.P.) iron powders with a deliberate high degree of oxidation were consolidated by medium-frequency electrical resistance sintering (MF-ERS). This is a consolidation technique where pressure, and heat coming from a low-voltage and high-intensity electrical current, are simultaneously applied to a powder mass. In this work, the achieved densification rate is interpreted according to a qualitative microscopic model, based on the compacts global porosity and electrical resistance evolution. The effect of current intensity and sintering time on compacts was studied on the basis of micrographs revealing the porosity distribution inside the sintered compact. The microstructural characteristics of compacts consolidated by the traditional cold-press and furnace-sinter powder metallurgy route are compared with results of MF-ERS consolidation. The goodness of MF-ERS versus the problems of conventional sintering when working with oxidized powders is analyzed. The electrical consolidation can obtain higher densifications than the traditional route under non-reducing atmospheres.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad DPI2015-69550-C2-1-PMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad DPI2015-69550-C2-2-

Electrical Resistivity of Powdered Porous Compacts

In this chapter, the problem of the electrical conduction in powdered systems is analyzed. New equations for computing the effective electrical resistivity of metallic powder aggregates and sintered compacts are proposed. In both cases, the effective electrical resistivity is a function of the bulk material resistivity, the sample porosity and the tap porosity of the starting powder. Additional parameters are required to describe the case of non-sintered powder aggregates: one of them describes a certain residual resistivity and another describes the rate of mechanical descaling during compression of the oxide layers covering the particles. Laws for the thermal dependence of these two parameters are also suggested. These new equations modeling the effective electrical resistivity are valid in all the physical range of porosity: from zero porosity to the tap porosity. Links between the proposed equations and the percolation conduction theory are stated. The proposed equations have been experimentally validated with powder aggregates (both in as-received state and after electrical activation to eliminate oxide layers) and sintered compacts of different metallic powders, resulting in a very good agreement with theoretical predictions. In addition to their general interest, the proposed models can be of great interest in modeling electrical consolidation techniques

Using Global Behavior Modeling to Improve QoS in Cloud Data Storage Services

The cloud computing model aims to make large-scale data-intensive computing affordable even for users with limited financial resources, that cannot invest into expensive infrastructures necesssary to run them. In this context, MapReduce is emerging as a highly scalable programming paradigm that enables high-throughput data-intensive processing as a cloud service. Its performance is highly dependent on the underlying storage service, responsible to efficiently support massively parallel data accesses by guaranteeing a high throughput under heavy access concurrency. In this context, quality of service plays a crucial role: the storage service needs to sustain a stable throughput for each individual accesss, in addition to achieving a high aggregated throughput under concurrency. In this paper we propose a technique to address this problem using component monitoring, application-side feedback and behavior pattern analysis to automatically infer useful knowledge about the causes of poor quality of service and provide an easy way to reason in about potential improvements. We apply our proposal to Blob Seer, a representative data storage service specifically designed to achieve high aggregated throughputs and show through extensive experimentation substantial improvements in the stability of individual data read accesses under MapReduce workloads

Use of new technologies and personality factors in college students

Internet y móvil son TIC de gran incidencia a nivel social. Aunque proporcionan innumerables ventajas, también pueden complicarnos la vida si se hace un uso inadecuado de las mismas. Los objetivos del estudio fueron caracterizar el posible uso problemático de Internet y móvil y las posibles relaciones con factores psicológicos. Para ello, se recogieron datos sociodemográficos y se administraron cinco cuestionarios a 229 estudiantes de la Universidad de Cádiz: Cuestionario de Experiencias Relacionadas con el uso de Internet (CERI), Cuestionario de Experiencias Relacionadas con el uso de Móvil (CERM), Escala de Autoestima de Rosenberg, NEO-FFI y Escala de Impulsividad Estado (EIE). La muestra reveló que un 5,7% presentaba problemas frecuentes con el uso de Internet y un 2,2% con el móvil. El uso problemático correlacionaba positivamente con neuroticismo y bajo control de impulsos, y negativamente con responsabilidad en ambas TIC. En conclusión, los datos aportan evidencias sobre la relación existente entre el uso problemático de las TIC y determinados factores psicológicos.Internet and mobile are ICT of high magnitude on the social level and provide many advantages, making easier our daily. However, our daily can also become difficult if we don’t use them appropriately. Our objectives were to determinate the problematic uses of Internet and mobile and its relationships with psychological factors. A sociodemographic data were collected and five questionnaires were applied to 229 from students of the University of Cádiz: one scale for problematic use of Internet (CERI) and for mobile (CERM), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the NEO-FFI Inventory, the impulsivity State Scale (EIE). The results revealed that 5.7% had frequent problems with Internet and 2.2% with mobile. The problematic use correlates positively with neuroticism and low impulse control, and negatively with responsibility for both ICT. In conclusion, the data provides evidence of the relationship between the problematic use of ICT and psychological factors

An autonomic framework for enhancing the quality of data grid services

Data grid services have been used to deal with the increasing needs of applications in terms of data volume and throughput. The large scale, heterogeneity and dynamism of grid environments often make management and tuning of these data services very complex. Furthermore, current high-performance I/O approaches are characterized by their high complexity and specific features that usually require specialized administrator skills. Autonomic computing can help manage this complexity. The present paper describes an autonomic subsystem intended to provide self-management features aimed at efficiently reducing the I/O problem in a grid environment, thereby enhancing the quality of service (QoS) of data access and storage services in the grid. Our proposal takes into account that data produced in an I/O system is not usually immediately required. Therefore, performance improvements are related not only to current but also to any future I/O access, as the actual data access usually occurs later on. Nevertheless, the exact time of the next I/O operations is unknown. Thus, our approach proposes a long-term prediction designed to forecast the future workload of grid components. This enables the autonomic subsystem to determine the optimal data placement to improve both current and future I/O operations