Selecting SUDS in the Valencia Region of Spain

This paper reports on a study of the implementation of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) in two Spanish towns (Xàtiva and Benaguasil) as part of the EU LIFE+ Project AQUAVAL, which has been conceived to introduce examples of sustainable drainage to the Valencia Region of Spain. Six sites in a range of common urban spaces and land uses are selected and appropriate SUDS techniques proposed by means of a decision-support process. This primarily consisted of the systematic application of key selection criteria through matrices and scores, followed by a brief sustainability analysis. Stakeholders’ preferences and opinions as well as educational and social opportunities are highly considered throughout the process. General monitoring requirements and major limitations in using the methodology are outlined, stressing the need for improvement of four main aspects: local data regarding SUDS performance, detail of the sustainability analysis, support through comprehensive modelling tools, and level of stakeholder engagement. The importance of creating showcases for SUDS in Mediterranean Regions, thus adapting key selection criteria as to foster sustainable drainage understanding and expertise is highlighted

Social comparisons are associated with poorer and riskier financial decision making, no matter whether encounters are sporadic or repeated

Previous research suggests that social comparisons affect decision making under uncertainty. However, the role of the length of the social interaction for this relationship remains unknown. This experiment tests the effect of social comparisons on financial risk taking and how this effect is modulated by whether social encounters are sporadic or repeated. Participants carried out a computer task consisting of a series of binary choices between lotteries of varying profitability and risk, with real monetary stakes. After each decision, participants could compare their own payoff to that of a counterpart who made the same decision at the same time and whose choices/earnings did not affect the participants’ earnings. The design comprised three between-subjects treatments which differed in the nature of the social interaction: participants were informed that they would be matched with either (a) a different participant in each trial, (b) the same participant across all trials, or (c) a "virtual participant", i.e. a computer algorithm. Compared to the non-social condition (c), subjects in both social conditions (a and b) chose lotteries with lower expected value (z=-3.10, p<0.01) and higher outcome variance (z=2.13, p=0.03). However, no differences were found between the two social conditions (z=1.15, p=0.25 and z=0.35, p=0.73, respectively). These results indicate that social comparison information per se leads to poorer and riskier financial decisions, irrespective of whether or not the referent other is encountered repeatedly

Optical absorption of divalent metal tungstates: Correlation between the band-gap energy and the cation ionic radius

We have carried out optical-absorption and reflectance measurements at room temperature in single crystals of AWO4 tungstates (A = Ba, Ca, Cd, Cu, Pb, Sr, and Zn). From the experimental results their band-gap energy has been determined to be 5.26 eV (BaWO4), 5.08 eV (SrWO4), 4.94 eV (CaWO4), 4.15 eV (CdWO4), 3.9-4.4 eV (ZnWO4), 3.8-4.2 eV (PbWO4), and 2.3 eV (CuWO4). The results are discussed in terms of the electronic structure of the studied tungstates. It has been found that those compounds where only the s electron states of the A2+ cation hybridize with the O 2p and W 5d states (e.g BaWO4) have larger band-gap energies than those where also p, d, and f states of the A2+ cation contribute to the top of the valence band and the bottom of the conduction band (e.g. PbWO4). The results are of importance in view of the large discrepancies existent in prevoiusly published data.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Synchronization of the Frenet-Serret linear system with a chaotic nonlinear system by feedback of states

A synchronization procedure of the generalized type in the sense of Rulkov et al [Phys. Rev. E 51, 980 (1995)] is used to impose a nonlinear Malasoma chaotic motion on the Frenet-Serret system of vectors in the differential geometry of space curves. This could have applications to the mesoscopic motion of biological filamentsComment: 12 pages, 7 figures, accepted at Int. J. Theor. Phy

MAP Kinase Phosphatase-5 Regulates Cardiac Adapation to Endurance Exercise

Endurance exercise induces a beneficial effect on the cardiovascular system and promotes cardio protection against heart disease. It has been established that the mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) promote the improvement of cardiac function in response to endurance exercise. However, molecular mechanisms of how MAPK signaling pathways regulate cardiac adaptation to endurance exercise remain unclear. The MAPKs are inactivated by MAP kinase phosphatases (MKPs) through direct dephosphorylation. Recently, growing evidence suggests the importance of MKP-5 signaling mechanisms in physiological and pathological processes. Previously, we have demonstrated that MKP-5-deficient skeletal muscle exhibits improved regenerative myogenesis in response to injury and mice lacking the expression of MKP-5 ameliorate dystrophic muscle disease. However, the role of MKP-5 has not been explored in cardiac muscle. PURPOSE: This study aims to understand how MKP-5 regulates cardiac adaption to endurance exercise. METHODS: Wild type mice and MKP-5-deficient mice were subjected to endurance exercise at 70~75% VO2max: treadmill running at 15 m/min, 0% grade, 60 min/day, and 5 consecutive days. After 5 days of endurance exercise, we performed a progressive exercise stress test. Endurance exercise capacity was determined by a graded increase in treadmill speed (2~6 m/min every 5 min) to the point of exhaustion and then running distance was measured. RESULTS: Our findings revealed that MKP-5-deficient mice exhibit 3-fold increased endurance exercise capacity as compared with wild type mice (ppCONCLUSION: Our study demonstrates that MKP-5 plays a central role in cardiac adaptation to endurance exercise. It suggests that MKP-5 may serve as a pivotal regulator for MAPKs in cardiac adaptation to endurance exercise

An Interactive Approach to Support Event Log Generation for Data Pipeline Discovery

Process Mining is a discipline that sits between data mining and business process management. The starting point of process mining is an event log, which is analyzed to extract useful insights and recurrent patterns about how processes are executed within organizations. However, often its concrete application is hampered by the considerable preparation effort that needs to be conducted by human experts to collect the required data for building a suitable event log. Instead, event logs need to be extracted from different and heterogeneous data sources, often using customized extraction scripts whose implementation requires both technical and domain expertise. While this is recognized as a relevant issue in the process mining community, literature solutions tend to be ad-hoc for particular application contexts, or not enough structured to be easily applied in practice. In this paper, we tackle this issue by proposing an interactive and general-purpose approach to support organizations in generating simulated event logs that can be employed to discover the structure of the data pipelines executed within a business process. A data pipeline is a composite workflow for processing data that is enacted as part of process execution. To assess the practical applicability of the approach, we show the results of a preliminary evaluation performed in a digital marketing scenario in the range of the recently funded H2020 DataCloud project

High-pressure structural investigation of several zircon-type orthovanadates

Room temperature angle-dispersive x-ray diffraction measurements on zircon-type EuVO4, LuVO4, and ScVO4 were performed up to 27 GPa. In the three compounds we found evidence of a pressure-induced structural phase transformation from zircon to a scheelite-type structure. The onset of the transition is near 8 GPa, but the transition is sluggish and the low- and high-pressure phases coexist in a pressure range of about 10 GPa. In EuVO4 and LuVO4 a second transition to a M-fergusonite-type phase was found near 21 GPa. The equations of state for the zircon and scheelite phases are also determined. Among the three studied compounds, we found that ScVO4 is less compressible than EuVO4 and LuVO4, being the most incompressible orthovanadate studied to date. The sequence of structural transitions and compressibilities are discussed in comparison with other zircon-type oxides.Comment: 34 pages, 2 Tables, 11 Figure