Los AAE entre la UE y África. La introducción de la reciprocidad y el caso de Ghana

Under the Cotonou Agreement, the European Union (EU) is negotiating the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) with the different regions of the countries African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) where trade reciprocity is introduced. Taking the case of the provisional EPA that is meant to be signed between the EU and Ghana, this paper describes and analyzes the characteristics of the Agreement and its consequences for the African country. It also criticizes the premature introduction of the reciprocity in the trade between both regions.En el marco de los Acuerdos de Cotonú, la Unión Europea (UE) está negociando los Acuerdos de Asociación Económica (AAE) con las distintas regiones de los países de África, Caribe y Pacífico (ACP) en los que se introduce la reciprocidad comercial. Tomando el caso del AAE provisional que se pretende firmar este año 2011 entre la UE y Ghana, este trabajo describe y analiza las características del acuerdo y sus consecuencias para el país africano. También se critica la introducción prematura de la reciprocidad en el comercio entre ambas regiones

Refrigeration Capacity and Effect of Ageing on the Operation of Cellulose Evaporative Cooling Pads, by Wind Tunnel Analysis

This study investigates the temperature reduction capacity and water consumption of a fan-pad system installed in a greenhouse located in the coastal regions of Almería. The suitability of this system for coastal zones with high environmental humidity during the summer is analyzed. Historical temperature and relative humidity series are studied, obtaining the thermal difference and maximum, medium, and minimum monthly water consumption of the pads based on the operation data of the pads. Despite the high relative humidity of the air in the hottest hours of the day, a decrease of 5.92 ºC in the mean temperature and a water consumption of 13.55 l/h per square meter of an evaporative cooling pad are obtained in the month of August. Additionally, the operation of a cellulose evaporative cooling pad installed for 3 years in a greenhouse is analyzed in a wind tunnel and compared with that of a new pad of the same model. Over time and with low maintenance, the porosity of the pad decreases due to salt incrustation. The salt incrustation makes airflow more difficult in the pad, increasing the pressure drop by 170.04%; however, the air saturation efficiency of the pad increases by 6.6% due to the greater contact time between the air and the waterMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad de España AGL2015-68050-RUnión Europea (FEDER) AGL2015-68050-

Energy Efficiency in Greenhouse Evaporative Cooling Techniques: Cooling Boxes versus Cellulose Pads

Evaporative cooling systems using a combination of evaporative pads and extractor fans require greenhouses to be hermetic. The greatest concentration of greenhouses in the world is located in southeast Spain, but these tend not to be hermetic structures and consequently can only rely on fogging systems as evaporative cooling techniques. Evaporative cooling boxes provide an alternative to such systems. Using a low-speed wind tunnel, the present work has compared the performance of this system with four pads of differing geometry and thickness manufactured by two different companies. The results obtained show that the plastic packing in the cooling unit produces a pressure drop of 11.05 Pa at 2 m·s−1, which is between 51.27% and 94.87% lower than that produced by the cellulose pads. This pressure drop was not influenced by increases in the water flow. The evaporative cooling boxes presented greater saturation efficiency at the same flow, namely 82.63%, as opposed to an average figure of 65% for the cellulose pads; and also had a lower specific consumption of water, at around 3.05 L·h−1·m−2·°C−1. Consequently, we conclude that evaporative cooling boxes are a good option for cooling non-hermetic greenhouses such as those most frequently used in the Mediterranean basin

Giuseppe Cervi, Guillaume Jacobe y las relaciones entre la "Regia Sociedad de Medicina y demás Ciencias de Sevilla" y la "Royal Society of London" en 1736

El siglo XVIII fue el siglo de las instituciones científicas. Nuestro país no fue ajeno a este proceso, encontrándose entre las instituciones de más temprana creación la Regia Sociedad de Medicina y demás Ciencias de Sevilla que, aunque fundada a principios de siglo, adquirió carta de naturaleza realmente en la década de los años treinta. En este resurgimiento tuvo una influencia decisiva Giuseppe Cervi, primer médico de Felipe V y uno de los personajes más relevantes del panorama médico español de la época. Este artículo estudia las circunstancias que marcaron el nombramiento de Cervi como miembro de la Royal Society, en particular las debidas a la intervención de Guillaume Jacobe, médico francés contratado como anatómico por la Regia Sociedad, durante una estancia de trabajo en París, de quien se estudia la vinculación con la Sociedad sevillana

Thermography and Sonic Anemometry to Analyze Air Heaters in Mediterranean Greenhouses

The present work has developed a methodology based on thermography and sonic anemometry for studying the microclimate in Mediterranean greenhouses equipped with air heaters and polyethylene distribution ducts to distribute the warm air. Sonic anemometry allows us to identify the airflow pattern generated by the heaters and to analyze the temperature distribution inside the greenhouse, while thermography provides accurate crop temperature data. Air distribution by means of perforated polyethylene ducts at ground level, widely used in Mediterranean-type greenhouses, can generate heterogeneous temperature distributions inside the greenhouse when the system is not correctly designed. The system analyzed in this work used a polyethylene duct with a row of hot air outlet holes (all of equal diameter) that expel warm air toward the ground to avoid plant damage. We have observed that this design (the most widely used in Almería’s greenhouses) produces stagnation of hot air in the highest part of the structure, reducing the heating of the crop zone. Using 88 kW heating power (146.7 W∙m−2) the temperature inside the greenhouse is maintained 7.2 to 11.2 °C above the outside temperature. The crop temperature (17.6 to 19.9 °C) was maintained above the minimum recommended value of 10 °C

IMS signalling for multiparty services based on network level multicast

3rd EURO-NGI Conference on Next Generation Internet Networks. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, 21-23 may 2007.The standardization process of the UMTS technology has led to the development of the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). IMS provides a framework that supports the negotiation of the next generation multimedia services with QoS requirements that are envisioned for 3G networks. But even though many of these services involve the participation of multiple users in a multiparty arrangement, the delivery technology at network level is still unicast based. This approach is not optimum, in terms of transmission efficiency. In this paper, a new approach is presented proposing to use a network level multicast delivery technology for the multiparty services that are signalled through IMS. The main advantages and drawbacks related with this new approach are analyzed in the article. Finally, as a starting point in the development of the presented solution, a new SIP signalling dialogue is proposed allowing the negotiation of a generic multiparty service, and supporting at the same time the configuration of the corresponding network level multicast delivery service with QoS requirements that will be used in the user plane.Publicad

Análisis de las intervenciones en capital psicológico en el contexto organizacional.

El objetivo de este estudio ha sido analizar las intervenciones en capital psicológico llevadas a cabo en las organizaciones. Para ello, se llevó a cabo una revisión sistemática, utilizando el método PRISMA, empleando como descriptores: “psychological capital or psycap” AND “intervention”. Tras la aplicación de los criterios de inclusión y exclusión resultaron 8 artículos, los cuales ponen de manifiesto que las intervenciones en capital psicológico aumentan los niveles de satisfacción laboral, engagement, productividad y rendimiento en el ámbito laboral, así como disminuye la rotación. Los resultados obtenidos confirman que las intervenciones en capital psicológico en el ámbito organizacional producen cambios positivos en diversas variables organizacionales.The aim of this study was to analyse psychological capital interventions carried out in organizations. To this end, a systematic review was carried out using the PRISMA method, using the following descriptors: "psychological capital or psycap" AND "intervention". After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 8 articles were found, which show that psychological capital interventions increase levels of job satisfaction, engagement, productivity and performance in the workplace, as well as reducing turnover. The results obtained confirm that psychological capital interventions in the organizational environment produce positive changes in several organizational variables

Los AAE entre la UE y África. La introducción de la reciprocidad y el caso de Ghana

En el marco de los Acuerdos de Cotonú, la Unión Europea (UE) está negociando los Acuerdos de Asociación Económica (AAE) con las distintas regiones de los países de África, Caribe y Pacífico (ACP) en los que se introduce la reciprocidad comercial. Tomando el caso del AAE provisional que se pretende firmar este año 2011 entre la UE y Ghana, este trabajo describe y analiza las características del acuerdo y sus consecuencias para el país africano. También se critica la introducción prematura de la reciprocidad en el comercio entre ambas regiones

Enabling the orchestration of IoT slices through edge and cloud microservice platforms

This article addresses one of the main challenges related to the practical deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions: the coordinated operation of entities at different infrastructures to support the automated orchestration of end-to-end Internet of Things services. This idea is referred to as "Internet of Things slicing" and is based on the network slicing concept already defined for the Fifth Generation (5G) of mobile networks. In this context, we present the architectural design of a slice orchestrator addressing the aforementioned challenge, based on well-known standard technologies and protocols. The proposed solution is able to integrate existing technologies, like cloud computing, with other more recent technologies like edge computing and network slicing. In addition, a functional prototype of the proposed orchestrator has been implemented, using open-source software and microservice platforms. As a first step to prove the practical feasibility of our solution, the implementation of the orchestrator considers cloud and edge domains. The validation results obtained from the prototype prove the feasibility of the solution from a functional perspective, verifying its capacity to deploy Internet of Things related functions even on resource constrained platforms. This approach enables new application models where these Internet of Things related functions can be onboarded on small unmanned aerial vehicles, offering a flexible and cost-effective solution to deploy these functions at the network edge. In addition, this proposal can also be used on commercial cloud platforms, like the Google Compute Engine, showing that it can take advantage of the benefits of edge and cloud computing respectivelyThe work of Ivan Vidal and Francisco Valera was partially supported by the European H2020 5GinFIRE project (grant agreement 732497), and by the 5GCity project (TEC2016-76795-C6-3-R) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness

Designing an Advanced Regional Research Network

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