Unit Commitment with Load Uncertainty by Joint Chance-Constrained Programming

This paper presents an algorithm to solve a unit commitment problem that takes into account the uncertainty in the demand. This uncertainty is included in the optimization problem as a joint chance constraint that bounds the minimum value of the probability to jointly meet the deterministic power balance constraints. The demand is modeled as a multivariate, normally distributed, random variable and the correlation among different time periods is also considered. A deterministic mixed-integer linear programming problem is sequentially solved until it converges to the solution of the chanceconstrained optimization problem. Different approaches are presented to update the z-value used to transform the joint chance constraint into a set of deterministic constraints. Results from a realistic size case study are presented and the values obtained for the multivariate normal distribution probability are compared with the ones obtained by using a Monte Carlo simulation procedureUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

HispaVeg: a new online vegetation plot database for Spain

We describe a new online database, named HispaVeg, which currently holds data from 2663 vegetation plots of Spanish woodlands, scrublands and grasslands. Unlike other similar databases, a detailed description of the structure is stored with the floristic data of each plot (i.e., number and physiognomy of the vertical layers, cover values for each layer).Most of the vegetation plots are large rectangles (400 to 2000 square meters) with an average of 34 species per plot. The survey dates range from 1956 to present, with most of the records between 1964 and 1994. The elevation of the plots ranges from 0 to 2880, with most of the plots between 300 and 1500 m. HispaVeg is freely available to the scientific community. Users can query the online database, view printable reports for each plot and download spreadsheet-like raw data for subsets of vegetation plots

Agglomerations around natural resources in the hospitality industry: Balancing growth with the sustainable development goals

Many tourism agglomerations are situated near natural resources, which implies a need to balance business growth with environmental preservation. Our analysis of the location decisions of 295 luxury beach hotels in Spain between 1960 and 2015 reveals two main findings. First, we confirm the positive relationship between the existence of demandrelated urbanization services around natural resources and the attractiveness of agglomerations to new entrants. Second, we find that an agglomeration’s attractiveness negatively affects the density of firms in the agglomeration if that attractiveness hinders firms’ access to the same natural resources. Our results contribute to the strategy literature on agglomerations and provide a better understanding of how the tourism industry can work toward achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).Spanish State Research AgencyInnovation and Science Ministry PID2019-106725GB-I00Ministry of Science and Innovation through the FEDER funds from the Spanish Pluriregional Operational Program 2014-20, LifeWatch-ERIC action line LifeWatch-2019-10-UGR-0

Calidad y algo más: El efecto conjunto de la gestión de la calidad y medioambiental en la rentabilidad de la empresa

En el panorama empresarial actual tanto la implantación de sistemas de gestión de la calidad y medioambiental como su posterior certifi cación son prácticas de gestión cada más consolidadas debido a su gran importancia para el correcto desarrollo de la actividad económica. Usando la teoría de recursos y capacidades, este trabajo demuestra empíricamente que la combinación de ambas iniciativas de gestión está positivamente relacionada con altos niveles de rentabilidad empresarial. Para ello, se ha utilizado una muestra que cuenta con 3.817 unidades de negocio en siete países de la OCDE de diversos subsectores manufactureros

Joint Effect of MCP-1 Genotype GG and MMP-1 Genotype 2G/2G Increases the Likelihood of Developing Pulmonary Tuberculosis in BCG-Vaccinated Individuals

We previously reported that the – 2518 MCP-1 genotype GG increases the likelihood of developing tuberculosis (TB) in non-BCG-vaccinated Mexicans and Koreans. Here, we tested the hypothesis that this genotype, alone or together with the – 1607 MMP-1 functional polymorphism, increases the likelihood of developing TB in BCG-vaccinated individuals. We conducted population-based case-control studies of BCG-vaccinated individuals in Mexico and Peru that included 193 TB cases and 243 healthy tuberculin-positive controls from Mexico and 701 TB cases and 796 controls from Peru. We also performed immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis of lymph nodes from carriers of relevant two-locus genotypes and in vitro studies to determine how these variants may operate to increase the risk of developing active disease. We report that a joint effect between the – 2518 MCP-1 genotype GG and the – 1607 MMP-1 genotype 2G/2G consistently increases the odds of developing TB 3.59-fold in Mexicans and 3.9-fold in Peruvians. IHC analysis of lymph nodes indicated that carriers of the two-locus genotype MCP-1 GG MMP-1 2G/2G express the highest levels of both MCP-1 and MMP-1. Carriers of these susceptibility genotypes might be at increased risk of developing TB because they produce high levels of MCP-1, which enhances the induction of MMP-1 production by M. tuberculosis-sonicate antigens to higher levels than in carriers of the other two-locus MCP-1 MMP-1 genotypes studied. This notion was supported by in vitro experiments and luciferase based promoter activity assay. MMP-1 may destabilize granuloma formation and promote tissue damage and disease progression early in the infection. Our findings may foster the development of new and personalized therapeutic approaches targeting MCP-1 and/or MMP-1

Las necesidades formativas docentes de los profesores universitarios

En este artículo pretendemos analizar las necesidades formativas docentes de los profesores noveles universitarios y de los profesores en general de las Universidades de Sevilla y Huelva. No resulta extraño decir que la titulación universitaria se ocupa fundamentalmente de preparar a los alumnos para desempeñar tareas en el mundo profesional de la empresa más que para desempeñar tareas en la institución universitaria. Debido a ello, los profesionales que deciden continuar en la vida universitaria encuentran verdaderos problemas a la hora de comenzar su actividad profesional como docentes, detectándose, por tanto, determinadas necesidades formativas en lo que se refiere fundamentalmente a la utilización de estrategias docentes que mejorarían su incorporación al mundo de la docencia universitaria. Estos profesores reclaman formación y asesoramiento pedagógico y didáctico para la mejora de su tarea docente, es decir, propuestas formativas adecuadas al desempeño de su papel como profesionales de la educación superior.In this article we try to analyze educational formative necessities and of the professors' beginner university students advice and of the professors in general at the Universities of Seville and Huelva. The university titulación is in charge of fundamentally of preparing the students to carry out tasks in the professional world of the company more than to carry out tasks in the university institution. Professionals that decide to continue in the university life find true problems when beginning their professional activity as educational, being detected, therefore, certain formative necessities in what refers base to the use of educational strategies that you/they would improve their incorporation to the world of the university docencia. These professors claim formation and pedagogic and didactic advice for the improvement of their educational task, that is to say, appropriate formative proposals to the acting of their paper like professionals of the superior education. The society of the knowledge and of the information in the one that we meet demand every time with more peak the formation of the different professionals that you/they carry out different tasks in the society. A deep concern exists for the formation, what bears, in general, every time a bigger number of formation programs depending on the formative necessities that the professionals present, as well as different forms of consenting to them, mainly the denominated programs and-learning and on-line. In this article the results and conclusions of the necessities of the beginner professors' of University educational formation are exposed. It is necessary to highlight that the publications that have taken place in the last times point out that the university professors, the same as other professionals, require for their improvement as other partners' educational supports and other colleagues' specific advice with more experience professional, as well as certain didactic formation. In this sense, the formation programs for professors contribute to the improvement of the educational quality, and therefore, educational, of the university institutions, helping this way to the professors to carry out, the same as in other professions, their list like educational

FEMINIZATION OF NILE TILAPIA Oreochromis niloticus (L.) BY DIETHYLSTILBESTROL GROWTH AND GONADOSOMATIC INDEX/Feminización de la tilapia del nilo Oreochromis niloticus (L.) mediante dietilestilbestrol. Crecimiento e índice gonadosomático

Sex-reversal by exogenous hormones is the most common technique used to generate monosex populations of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). However, this technique has provoked a negative perception in recent years. Because of this, alternative techniques have been developed, including the production of YY males. Although the nal product (for sale) is not administered hormones, the rst part of this technique still requires the feminization of XY fry by use of estrogens, including some of a synthetic nature, such as diethylstilbestrol (DES), an estrogen that has shown particularly excellent results in related species. The aim of this study was to evaluate the eect of increasing concentrations of DES (100, 200, 300, and 400 mg kg−1 ) during the fry stage on the sex proportion, growth and gonadosomatic index (GSI) of Nile tilapia. The 400 mg kg−1 concentration was the one that produced the highest proportion of females (91 %). However, increasing the concentration of DES provided through diet does not guarantee a 100 % feminization rate. Additionally, the growth, survival and GSI, showed a signicant decrease (p < 0.05) in all groups fed with DES compared to the control group. It is possible that the anabolic eect of DES observed in other species is not present in Nile tilapi

Una base de datos de inventarios de vegetación: HISPAVEG

Las bases de datos de inventarios de vegetación son una importante fuente de información en relación a un conjunto amplio de aspectos del medio natural, entre los que destacan los efectos de la gestión forestal en la diversidad vegetal, los estudios de autoecología basados en modelos de distribución de especies y la observación a largo plazo de las comunidades vegetales. Desde esta valoración esta comunicación presenta HispaVeg, una base de datos de inventarios de vegetación online, abierta y viva, con las siguientes características y resultados: Permite introducir inventarios de vegetación con diversas metodologías (estructural, como la fisionómica-estructural de Ruiz de la Torre y de la escuela de Zurich-Montpelier). En la actualidad contiene 2.663 inventarios históricos del profesor Juan Ruiz de la Torre realizados entre los años 1950 y 2000, de superficie de parcela entre 400 y 3.600 m2, tanto de formaciones arboladas como de matorrales y pastizales, con número medio de especies por inventario de 34 y distribuidos por toda la España peninsular e Islas Baleares, en un intervalo altitudinal entre 0 y 2880 m