X-Type Interface for Management of Multidomain Multitechnology Networks

The specification and implementation of Xcoop interfaces has received great attention in the last few years. In fact, the appropriate design of this system component is a key aspect for efficient and seamless co-operative management. In this context it is worth mentioning the EURESCOM P408 project and the standards of the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI) in Europe and the ITU-T and Telemanagement Forum related work worldwide. The Xcoop specification presented in this paper, produced as part of the results of the project MISA co-funded by the Commission of the European Union, is a step ahead in the evolution of this system interface. Distinguished from preceding works, this one allows interactions between management systems independently to the underlying network technology, ATM, SDH or hybrid. This is achieved by defining appropriate functionality and an information model, indeed, where the specific characteristics of ATM and SDH resources are abstracted and merged in common classes.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Redes de política y diseño de estrategias para superar la crisis del agua. Los casos de los acuíferos del Valle de León, Guanajuato, y del Valle de Aguascalientes (México)

The present article is based on a study addressing the confrontation between political projects around the management of two aquifers in central Mexico that are threatened by overpumping. The analysis focuses on the kinds of relationships established between the public and private actors involved in the management of underground water, as well as in the institutional arrangements shaping these relationships, drawing on the theoretical perspective of public policy networks. The main objective of the article is to highlight not only the existence of distributive conflicts over water in Mexico but to identify the structural conditions of the country’s persistent water crisis. On the basis of the research results I put forward two main findings: first, public policies and strategies grounded on the notion that water is an economic good are insufficient and partial because they leave out solutions that seek greater distributive justice and are committed to environmental sustainability; second, developing effective solutions to the water crisis will require the consolidation of institutional arrangements based on rules that help to shape up a more inclusive water sector supportive of strategies to strengthen local development.Este artículo se basa en un estudio que muestra la disputa entre proyectos políticos en torno a la gestión del agua en dos acuíferos del centro de México afectados por sobreexplotación. Los casos se refieren al acuífero del Valle de León, Guanajuato, y del Valle de Aguascalientes. Analíticamente la atención se pone en el tipo de relaciones entabladas entre los actores públicos y privados involucrados en la gestión del agua subterránea, así como en los arreglos institucionales que moldean dichas relaciones a partir de la perspectiva llamada “análisis de redes de política pública”. El presente trabajo tiene el objetivo de resaltar no sólo el conflicto distributivo del agua en México, sino el de identificar condiciones estructurales de la persistencia de la crisis del agua. Los resultados de esta investigación permiten expresar dos ideas generales en este sentido: Primero, las políticas y estrategias basadas en la perspectiva que ve al agua como un bien económico son insuficientes y parciales al dejar fuera soluciones basadas en una mayor justicia distributiva y comprometidas con la sustentabilidad del medio ambiente; y segundo, el desarrollo de soluciones efectivas a la crisis del agua requerirá la consolidación de arreglos institucionales basados en reglas del juego que configuren un sector agua más inclusivo y que incida integralmente en las estrategias de desarrollo local

Redes de política y diseño de estrategias para superar la crisis del agua. Los casos de los acuíferos del Valle de León, Guanajuato, y del Valle de Aguascalientes (México)

The present article is based on a study addressing the confrontation between political projects around the management of two aquifers in central Mexico that are threatened by overpumping. The analysis focuses on the kinds of relationships established between the public and private actors involved in the management of underground water, as well as in the institutional arrangements shaping these relationships, drawing on the theoretical perspective of public policy networks. The main objective of the article is to highlight not only the existence of distributive conflicts over water in Mexico but to identify the structural conditions of the country’s persistent water crisis. On the basis of the research results I put forward two main findings: first, public policies and strategies grounded on the notion that water is an economic good are insufficient and partial because they leave out solutions that seek greater distributive justice and are committed to environmental sustainability; second, developing effective solutions to the water crisis will require the consolidation of institutional arrangements based on rules that help to shape up a more inclusive water sector supportive of strategies to strengthen local development.Este artículo se basa en un estudio que muestra la disputa entre proyectos políticos en torno a la gestión del agua en dos acuíferos del centro de México afectados por sobreexplotación. Los casos se refieren al acuífero del Valle de León, Guanajuato, y del Valle de Aguascalientes. Analíticamente la atención se pone en el tipo de relaciones entabladas entre los actores públicos y privados involucrados en la gestión del agua subterránea, así como en los arreglos institucionales que moldean dichas relaciones a partir de la perspectiva llamada “análisis de redes de política pública”. El presente trabajo tiene el objetivo de resaltar no sólo el conflicto distributivo del agua en México, sino el de identificar condiciones estructurales de la persistencia de la crisis del agua. Los resultados de esta investigación permiten expresar dos ideas generales en este sentido: Primero, las políticas y estrategias basadas en la perspectiva que ve al agua como un bien económico son insuficientes y parciales al dejar fuera soluciones basadas en una mayor justicia distributiva y comprometidas con la sustentabilidad del medio ambiente; y segundo, el desarrollo de soluciones efectivas a la crisis del agua requerirá la consolidación de arreglos institucionales basados en reglas del juego que configuren un sector agua más inclusivo y que incida integralmente en las estrategias de desarrollo local

Techno-economic comparison of buildings acting as Single-Self Consumers or as energy community through multiple economic scenarios

The European Union has set ambitious targets to move towards a society with high penetration of renewable energy sources. In the forthcoming energy transition, Energy Communities (EC), i.e., legal entities where different actors, including citizens, cooperate in energy generation, storage and management, will play a crucial role. The present work simulates the energy flows and assesses the potential economic benefits of a cluster of buildings acting collectively as an energy community – a specific case study is set in northern Italy by comparing the EC performance with a configuration where customers act as Single Self-Consumers (SSCs). Pending the transposition of EU Directives to binding national laws, due by 2021, different supporting tariffs (economic scenarios) have been simulated in order to determine which scheme will support more effectively the integration of Energy Communities in the national energy market. Results show that ECs (i.e., customers acting collectively as energy prosumers) are able to accelerate the diffusion of building-integrated renewable energy sources (RES), resulting in higher overall self-consumption rates than SSCs. Self-consumed electricity generates savings on the energy bill of EC, and we calculated positive economic performance indicators for all the analysed economic scenarios. The sensitivity analysis carried out on system and transport charges of the electricity bill shows their remarkable impact on the economics making the EC less attractive for investors and citizens without proper supporting schemes

Antibiotic and Antimalarial Quinones from Fungus-Growing Ant-Associated Pseudonocardia sp.

Three new members of the angucycline class of antibiotics, pseudonocardones A–C (1–3), along with the known antibiotics 6-deoxy-8-O-methylrabelomycin (4) and X-14881 E (5) have been isolated from the culture of a Pseudonocardia strain associated with the fungus-growing ant Apterostigma dentigerum. Compounds 4 and 5 showed antibiotic activity against Bacillus subtilis 3610 and liver-stage Plasmodium berghei, while 1–3 were inactive or only weakly active in a variety of biological assays. Compound 5 also showed moderate cytotoxicity against HepG2 cells

Dark Interactions and Cosmological Fine-Tuning

Cosmological models involving an interaction between dark matter and dark energy have been proposed in order to solve the so-called coincidence problem. Different forms of coupling have been studied, but there have been claims that observational data seem to narrow (some of) them down to something annoyingly close to the $\Lambda$CDM model, thus greatly reducing their ability to deal with the problem in the first place. The smallness problem of the initial energy density of dark energy has also been a target of cosmological models in recent years. Making use of a moderately general coupling scheme, this paper aims to unite these different approaches and shed some light as to whether this class of models has any true perspective in suppressing the aforementioned issues that plague our current understanding of the universe, in a quantitative and unambiguous way.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in JCAP. Minor corrections, one figure replaced, references adde

Dark Coupling and Gauge Invariance

We study a coupled dark energy-dark matter model in which the energy-momentum exchange is proportional to the Hubble expansion rate. The inclusion of its perturbation is required by gauge invariance. We derive the linear perturbation equations for the gauge invariant energy density contrast and velocity of the coupled fluids, and we determine the initial conditions. The latter turn out to be adiabatic for dark energy, when assuming adiabatic initial conditions for all the standard fluids. We perform a full Monte Carlo Markov Chain likelihood analysis of the model, using WMAP 7-year data.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, version accepted for publication in JCA

On the interactions of melatonin/β-cyclodextrin inclusion complex: A novel approach combining efficient semiempirical extended tight-binding (xtb) results with ab initio methods

Melatonin (MT) is a molecule of paramount importance in all living organisms, due to its presence in many biological activities, such as circadian (sleep–wake cycle) and seasonal rhythms (reproduction, fattening, molting, etc.). Unfortunately, it suffers from poor solubility and, to be used as a drug, an appropriate transport vehicle has to be developed, in order to optimize its release in the human tissues. As a possible drug-delivery system, β-cyclodextrin (βCD) represents a promising scaffold which can encapsulate the melatonin, releasing when needed. In this work, we present a computational study supported by experimental IR spectra on inclusion MT/βCD complexes. The aim is to provide a robust, accurate and, at the same time, low-cost methodology to investigate these inclusion complexes both with static and dynamic simulations, in order to study the main actors that drive the interactions of melatonin with β-cyclodextrin and, therefore, to understand its release mechanism