Moving the goalposts: reconfiguring the role of the private sector in the provision of water

This chapter is concerned with privatisation and PPPs in the water sector. The chapter traces the evolution of private sector involvement in water services, This initially expanded in the 1980s and 90s, led by the extreme form of water privatisation in the UK, and promoted by donors, notably the World Bank. By the early 2000s, it became increasingly clear that the policy was not working as planned. Contracts were difficult to establish and sustain, and many were cancelled or renegotiated. Little investment was raised from the private sector and the evidence of efficiency gains was weak. Privatisation tailed off in the late 2000s. In addition a number of cities remunicipalised their water, mainly in France, in an explicit rejection of the profit motive in the water supply. More recently, policy attention has turned to the potential of the private sector as a financier for the water sector, in line with trends in development finance more generally. The paper shows that this is problematic for a number of reasons and calls for greater attention to be directed towards supporting public sector water services

Efficient single-step rapeseed oleosome extraction using twin-screw press

Oil in seeds is encapsulated in oleosomes, which are small lipid droplets surrounded by a phospholipid-protein monolayer. The currently proposed method to extract intact oleosomes includes mixing seeds with alkaline media in a ratio 1:7, batch blending and filtering. In this work, we propose the use of a twin-screw press to perform the oleosome extraction at pH 7. The results show that similarly to blender extraction, twin-screw press recovers ⁓60% of the oleosomes; however the twin-screw press is able to achieve this yield even when just pure water is used. While in the blender extraction, the yield depends on ionic strength and pH of the extraction media, when using twin-screw press, the oleosome extraction yield predominantly depends on the mechanical forces. These shear forces are able to break the cell walls and release the cellular material while maintaining the integrity of oleosomes. The oleosomes extracted with twin-screw press have similar characteristics than those obtained by the blending process. Overall, twin-screw press seems a promising alternative to scale-up the oleosome aqueous extraction, especially as neutral pH can be used and the water usage is significantly reduced. Additionally, preliminary results showed that the yield can increase up to 90 wt%.</p

Una Nueva Política De Recursos Humanos En I+D: El Programa Ramón y Cajal

Publicado en: Economía Industrial, 343 (1): 149-160, 2000Peer reviewe

Una Nueva Política De Recursos Humanos En I+D: El Programa Ramón y Cajal

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sSLAM: Speeded-Up Visual SLAM Mixing Artificial Markers and Temporary Keypoints

Environment landmarks are generally employed by visual SLAM (vSLAM) methods in the form of keypoints. However, these landmarks are unstable over time because they belong to areas that tend to change, e.g., shadows or moving objects. To solve this, some other authors have proposed the combination of keypoints and artificial markers distributed in the environment so as to facilitate the tracking process in the long run. Artificial markers are special elements (similar to beacons) that can be permanently placed in the environment to facilitate tracking. In any case, these systems keep a set of keypoints that is not likely to be reused, thus unnecessarily increasing the computing time required for tracking. This paper proposes a novel visual SLAM approach that efficiently combines keypoints and artificial markers, allowing for a substantial reduction in the computing time and memory required without noticeably degrading the tracking accuracy. In the first stage, our system creates a map of the environment using both keypoints and artificial markers, but once the map is created, the keypoints are removed and only the markers are kept. Thus, our map stores only long-lasting features of the environment (i.e., the markers). Then, for localization purposes, our algorithm uses the marker information along with temporary keypoints created just in the time of tracking, which are removed after a while. Since our algorithm keeps only a small subset of recent keypoints, it is faster than the state-of-the-art vSLAM approaches. The experimental results show that our proposed sSLAM compares favorably with ORB-SLAM2, ORB-SLAM3, OpenVSLAM and UcoSLAM in terms of speed, without statistically significant differences in accuracy

sSLAM: Speeded-Up Visual SLAM Mixing Artificial Markers and Temporary Keypoints

Environment landmarks are generally employed by visual SLAM (vSLAM) methods in the form of keypoints. However, these landmarks are unstable over time because they belong to areas that tend to change, e.g., shadows or moving objects. To solve this, some other authors have proposed the combination of keypoints and artificial markers distributed in the environment so as to facilitate the tracking process in the long run. Artificial markers are special elements (similar to beacons) that can be permanently placed in the environment to facilitate tracking. In any case, these systems keep a set of keypoints that is not likely to be reused, thus unnecessarily increasing the computing time required for tracking. This paper proposes a novel visual SLAM approach that efficiently combines keypoints and artificial markers, allowing for a substantial reduction in the computing time and memory required without noticeably degrading the tracking accuracy. In the first stage, our system creates a map of the environment using both keypoints and artificial markers, but once the map is created, the keypoints are removed and only the markers are kept. Thus, our map stores only long-lasting features of the environment (i.e., the markers). Then, for localization purposes, our algorithm uses the marker information along with temporary keypoints created just in the time of tracking, which are removed after a while. Since our algorithm keeps only a small subset of recent keypoints, it is faster than the state-of-the-art vSLAM approaches. The experimental results show that our proposed sSLAM compares favorably with ORB-SLAM2, ORB-SLAM3, OpenVSLAM and UcoSLAM in terms of speed, without statistically significant differences in accuracy.This research was funded by the project PID2019-103871GB-I00 of the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, FEDER, Project 1380047-F UCOFEDER-2021 of Andalusia and by the European Union–NextGeneration EU for requalification of Spanish University System 2021–2023

Surface and capillary transitions in an associating binary mixture model

We investigate the phase diagram of a two-component associating fluid mixture in the presence of selectively adsorbing substrates. The mixture is characterized by a bulk phase diagram which displays peculiar features such as closed loops of immiscibility. The presence of the substrates may interfere the physical mechanism involved in the appearance of these phase diagrams, leading to an enhanced tendency to phase separate below the lower critical solution point. Three different cases are considered: a planar solid surface in contact with a bulk fluid, while the other two represent two models of porous systems, namely a slit and an array on infinitely long parallel cylinders. We confirm that surface transitions, as well as capillary transitions for a large area/volume ratio, are stabilized in the one-phase region. Applicability of our results to experiments reported in the literature is discussed.Comment: 12 two-column pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review E; corrected versio

Publicidad sanitaria en la prensa nacional española = Health advertising in the Spanish press

Resumen: Introducción. La publicidad, entendida como proceso de comunicación, será un factor importante en la prensa escrita. Tanto es así que la prensa escrita ocupa el segundo lugar en inversión publicitaria. Objetivos. Explorar la publicidad sobre salud de los dos periódicos nacionales más importantes de España y comparar la temática elegida en cada periódico. Material y método. Se trata de un estudio descriptivo longitudinal de los dos principales periódicos nacionales, El País y El Mundo. La muestra se recogió, publicidad sobre conductas de salud, durante una semana para cada periódico, desde lunes hasta domingo. Resultados. Prevalencia equitativa del número de publicidad a lo largo de la semana, con gran aumento en domingo. Se observa un número importante de publicidad direccionada hacia ambos géneros. Discusión. Uso por parte de las empresas de publicidad estereotipos en aquellos anuncios donde aparece una figura de género, así como distintas técnicas para atraer a toda costa la atención de la persona con las consecuencias económicas que conlleva. Conclusiones. La figura femenina no es tan usada como estereotipo en la publicidad en prensa nacional, dirigida a un mayor público. Abundante publicidad en la edición del domingo, apoyada por “ganchos” como obsequios para llamar la atención del comprador. Palabras clave: prensa nacional, salud pública, publicidad Abstract: Introduction. Advertising, understood as a process of communication, will be an important factor in the press. So much so that the press is second in advertising investment. Objectives. Explore health publicity on the two major national newspapers in Spain and compare the themes chosen for each newspaper. Material and methods. This is a longitudinal descriptive study of the two major national newspapers, El Pais and El Mundo. The sample was collected, publicity about health behaviors, for one week for each paper, from Monday to Sunday. Results. Prevalence equal number of advertising throughout the week, with large increase on Sunday. There is a significant number of advertising directed toward both genders. Discussion. Use by advertisers stereotypes in those ads where a figure appears gender and different techniques to attract attention at all costs from the person with the consequences that entails. Conclusions. The female figure is not used as a stereotype in the national press advertising, aimed at a wider audience. Heavily advertised in the Sunday edition, supported by "hooks" as gifts to attract the attention of the buyer. Keywords: national press, public health, advertisin