Nanotechnologies and health: juridical and philosophical implications

Although their applications have not yet extended widely due to their incipient state, nano-technologies and nano-medicines may be presumed to be at the origin of the next great technological revolution, foreseeably contributing to a new stage with respect to evolutions in mankind’s progress. Their possibilities are truly immense in enormously varied spheres, but the risks and uncertainties they engender are enormous too. Because access and use of the unceasingly increasing mega-quantity of information they generate will place further strain on the protection of personal life, privacy, the exercise of freedom, as well as the safeguarding of other fundamental principles and rights

Inmigrantes empresarios

Este artículo es el resumen de una investigación, a través de Entrevistas en Profundidad y de Historias de Vida, que ha tratado de indagar quienes son desde el punto de vista sociológico los inmigrantes que han creado una empresa en la Comunidad de Madrid, abordando la comprensión de los comportamientos y las relaciones sociales en las que están inmersos, alejándonos de una visión meramente cuantitativa y economicista. Hay que abordar, pues, el fenómeno de la inmigración como una cuestión política ya que ha adquirido un significado político radical, perteneciendo al núcleo mismo de ésta y no a su periferia, constituyéndose en un desafió para reflexionar sobre las condiciones del vínculo social y del contrato político, con el consiguiente cambio de la noción de lo que es la soberanía y la ciudadanía.This paper sums up the results of a research based on interviews in depth and daily life stories of immigrants within the Community of Madrid that have set up a business. Special attention is paid to their behaviour and the social relations in which they are immersed, avoiding a mere quantitative and economist interpretation. On the contrary, immigration is explained as a political issue due to the fact that it became an important radical argument of politics that claims for some reflections referring to the conditions of social cohesion and political contract in order to redefine the concept of sovereignty and citizenship

Detecting different road infrastructural elements based on the stochastic characterization of speed patterns

The automatic detection of road related information using data from sensors while driving has many potential applications such as traffic congestion detection or automatic routable map generation. This paper focuses on the automatic detection of road elements based on GPS data from on-vehicle systems. A new algorithm is developed that uses the total variation distance instead of the statistical moments to improve the classification accuracy. The algorithm is validated for detecting traffic lights, roundabouts, and street-crossings in a real scenario and the obtained accuracy (0.75) improves the best results using previous approaches based on statistical moments based features (0.71). Each road element to be detected is characterized as a vector of speeds measured when a driver goes through it. We first eliminate the speed samples in congested traffic conditions which are not comparable with clear traffic conditions and would contaminate the dataset. Then, we calculate the probability mass function for the speed (in 1 m/s intervals) at each point. The total variation distance is then used to find the similarity among different points of interest (which can contain a similar road element or a different one). Finally, a k-NN approach is used for assigning a class to each unlabelled element.The research leading to these results has received funding from the “HERMES-Smart Driver” Project TIN2013-46801-C4-2-R (MINECO), funded by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), and the “Analytics Using Sensor Data for Flatcity” Project TIN2016-77158-C4-1-R (MINECO/ERDF, EU) funded by the SpanishAgencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)

The role of stellar radial motions in shaping galaxy surface brightness profiles

Aims. The physics driving features such as breaks observed in galaxy surface brightness (SB) profiles remains contentious. Here, we assess the importance of stellar radial motions in shaping their characteristics. Methods. We use the simulated Milky Way-mass cosmological discs from the Ramses Disc Environment Study (RaDES) to characterise the radial redistribution of stars in galaxies displaying type-I (pure exponentials), II (downbending), and III (upbending) SB profiles. We compare radial profiles of the mass fractions and the velocity dispersions of different sub-populations of stars according to their birth and current location. Results. Radial redistribution of stars is important in all galaxies regardless of their light profiles. Type-II breaks seem to be a consequence of the combined effects of outward-moving and accreted stars. The former produce shallower inner profiles (lack of stars in the inner disc) and accumulate material around the break radius and beyond, strengthening the break; the latter can weaken or even convert the break into a pure exponential. Further accretion from satellites can concentrate material in the outermost parts, leading to type-III breaks that can coexist with type-II breaks, but situated further out. Type-III galaxies would be the result of an important radial redistribution of material throughout the entire disc, as well as a concentration of accreted material in the outskirts. In addition, type-III galaxies display the most efficient radial redistribution and the largest number of accreted stars, followed by type-I and II systems, suggesting that type-I galaxies may be an intermediate case between types-II and III. In general, the velocity dispersion profiles of all galaxies tend to flatten or even increase around the locations where the breaks are found. The age and metallicity profiles are also affected, exhibiting different inner gradients depending on their SB profile, being steeper in the case of type-II systems (as found observationally). The steep type-II profiles might be inherent to their formation rather than acquired via radial redistribution