Physical and chemical properties in relation to soil porosity: The influence of the natural wetting-drying cycle. III. Porosity and clay fraction

En el presente trabajo se presentan y discuten los resultados del análisis mineralógico de las arcillas de ocho perfiles patrones representativos de diversos suelos de interés agronómico. La composición mineralógica se estudia en relación con diversas fracciones de porosidad.In the present paper results from day mineralogical analyses of eight representative agronomically useful soil pro files are presented and discussed. Soil clay content and mineralogical composition are studied in relation to various soil pore-size ranges

Stress, Burnout, and Resilience: Are Teachers at Risk?

It is increasingly common to find alarming news related to tragic events occurring in schools around the world. Being able to deal with these situations without getting hurt is a task not suitable for everyone. In general, teachers are the ones who must deal with this type of situation in addition to other daily problems that appear in any classroom that make the level of stress to which they are subjected can become dangerous. This research aims to know the current situation of teachers in a region of southeastern Spain in terms of their level of work stress, resilience, and other associated variables, for which an ex post facto quantitative approach study was designed. For this purpose, an ad hoc sociodemographic questionnaire, and questions based on the Teaching and Learning International Survey of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and the Brief Resilient Coping Scale were applied. The participating sample consisted of 470 teachers. The main findings were that 6% of teachers had burnout (high emotional exhaustion, high cynicism, and low professional effectiveness simultaneously). Resilience correlated inversely with stress, emotional exhaustion, cynicism, excessive teaching, and difficulty maintaining classroom discipline. In conclusion, knowing the needs of teachers allows us to reflect on what kind of prevention and intervention programs are necessary to improve the well-being of teachers and thus improve the quality of education

Applying A Methodology For Educating Students With Special Needs: A Case Study

The introduction of innovative educational technologies opens up new ways of interacting with students. We propose to exploit this potential to help in the education of children with special needs. We analyze the state of the art of tools supporting the teaching process, focusing on the omissions of existing research. We propose a new framework to help throughout the whole teaching process and describe its application to Proyecto Aprender (Learn Project), an educational resource targeting children with learning difficulties. Finally, we outline some conclusions and current/future research lines

Interactive evaluation of surgery skills in surgery simulators: A new method based on string matching algorithms

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11548-013-0881-zMonserrat Aranda, C.; Lucas, A.; Hernández-Orallo, J.; Rupérez Moreno, MJ.; Alcañiz Raya, ML. (2013). Interactive evaluation of surgery skills in surgery simulators: A new method based on string matching algorithms. International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery. 8(1 Supplement):373-374. doi:10.1007/s11548-013-0881-zS37337481 Supplemen

A Framework to Support Development of Learning Applications for Disabled Children

Multimedia resources are an important tool that can be used by teachers in the classroom as a learning aid for learners with disabilities or by parents and children at home. However, disabled children are not always able to use existing assistive technologies because they are not experienced enough, suffer from medium/profound disability, or simply do not have the financial resources to buy commercial tools. Additionally, today’s adapted tools are not always valid for a broad spectrum of disabled users and often focus on a user group. We claim that potential applications and resources for people with special needs must self-adapt to user capabilities and skills, reducing the use of external assistive technologies. In this paper, we present a guide for developers to create accessible applications and resources that reduce workload

Aphid resistance: an overlooked ecological dimension of nonstructural carbohydrates in cereals

Nonstructural carbohydrates in cereals have been widely investigated from physiological, genetic, and breeding perspectives. Nonstructural carbohydrates may contribute to grain filling, but correlations with yield are inconsistent and sometimes negative. Here we ask if there are hidden functions of nonstructural carbohydrates, advance an ecological dimension to this question, and speculate that high concentration of nonstructural carbohydrates may challenge the osmotic homeostasis of aphids, thus providing a working hypothesis that connects nonstructural carbohydrates with aphid resistance in cereals. In the light of this proposition, the amount and concentration of nonstructural carbohydrates should be regarded as functionally different traits, with amount relevant to the carbon economy of the crop and concentration playing an osmotic role. We conclude with suggestions for experiments to test our hypothesis

Contribution to column-integrated aerosol typing based on Sunphotometry using different criteria

This study analyses the aerosol optical and microphysical properties obtained by the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) in seven different sites operating in the Iberian Peninsula during three coincident years (2010−2012) with the objective of studying different aerosol typing approaches. This area is of interest due to its location between the Sahara desert (the largest source of natural aerosols in the world) and mainland Europe (a relevant source of anthropogenic aerosols). In particular, we study the aerosol optical depth (AOD), Angström parameter (α440–870) and fine mode fraction (FMF), which are estimated from direct sun irradiance measurements. Additionally, the single scattering albedo (ωo) and aerosol particle size distribution (PSD), which are computed using additional sky radiances measurements under cloudless skies, are used in our analyses. The analyses show aerosol seasonal patterns in the AOD with maximum values in summer/spring and minimum values in winter/autumn for all the analysed stations. For α440–870, there are differences from site to site, with maximum values in winter and minimum values in summer for the southern locations, while there is not a remarkable pattern for the eastern locations close to the Mediterranean coast. The frequent and intense Saharan dust outbreaks over the southern Iberian Peninsula and the intense anthropogenic activity in the eastern urban locations are behind these seasonal patterns in the AOD and α440–870. In this work, two of the most employed classification schemes of aerosol type in the literature are used: one is based on the AOD and α440–870, the other one is based on ωo at 440 nm and the FMF and a new classification scheme based on ωo at 440 nm and FMF is proposed. The results revealed that the new classification method is more appropriate for distinguishing the aerosol types that affect the Iberian Peninsula. The relationship derived here between Δωo = ωo (440)- ωo (1020) and the FMF is demonstrated to be useful for aerosol type classification when no measurements of the sky radiances, and consequently of ωo(440), are available. Alternatively, the relationship between the ratio Δωo/ωo(440) and the FMF can be used because (Δωo/ωo) provides information about both the spectral ωo and the absolute values.Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through projects CGL2013-45410-RSpanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through projects CGL2016-81092-RSpanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through projects CGL2017-90884-REDTAndalusia Regional Government through projects P12-RNM-240

Estándares para e-Learning Adaptativo y Accesible

En la actualidad existe un gran número de estándares que tratan sobre la accesibilidad de los sistemas de e-Learning, desde diversos puntos de vista, como los modelos de usuario, los escenarios de aprendizaje, las preferencias de interacción, las capacidades de los dispositivos y metadatos para especificar cómo entregar cualquier recurso de acuerdo a las necesidades de los usuarios. También existen otros estándares relevantes en el campo de la accesibilidad y la usabilidad del software. Cada uno de estos estándares representa un punto de vista diferente con su propio conjunto de objetivos y alcance, lo que dificulta comprender las relaciones que existen entre todos ellos. Esté artículo presentará una recopilación actualizada de los principales estándares relacionados con la accesibilidad, usabilidad y adaptabilidad de los sistemas de e-learning en el contexto del proyecto de investigación A2UN@, que está centrado en atender las necesidades de accesibilidad y adaptación de todos, en la Educación Superior

Soft-computing techniques in soil hydrological parameters modelling

1 copia .pdf (15 Pags., with Figs. y Tabls.) de la presentación orginal de los autores en el Congreso Internacional.The idea of the soft-computing Soft-computing models: * based on the data learning, * does not provide analytical solution of the problem,solutions are by by de nition inexact and approximate, * allow for modelling of the properties or behaviour of the complex systems without deep insight, * gives speci c solution for currently modelled phenomenon. Classical models: * based on full physical-mathematical modelling, * described by some class of exact mathematical equations, * often expensive in the sense resources utilised for solving the problem (computing time), * universal for the given phenomenon described.Peer reviewe