Preferences stability: A measure of preferences changes over time

Producción CientíficaTraditionally, preferences have been considered stable although there are growing evidences that such stability is a mere theoretical assumption. Attending to this fact, it should be interesting to measure how much stability preferences provide in order to improve decision making processes. Surprisingly, no research has been found on measuring preferences stability. To overcome this drawback, this paper proposes a novel approach for measuring the stability of preferences and also for improving understanding of current and future decisions. In order to be faithful to reality, this research considers decisions like complete pre-orders on a set of alternatives. Following this reasoning, this paper provides the general concept of decision stability measure as well as two specific measures: the local and the global decision stability measure. Moreover, the main features of the novel approach are examined, including several mathematical results on the behaviour of the proposed measure. And eventually, this contribution develops two real cases of study, with in-depth analysis of preferences behaviour and their stability over time. Specifically, the first one explores into the characteristics of Spanish citizens' voting behaviour and the second one attempts to analyse European citizens' preferences about passenger car market.Este trabajo forma parte del proyecto de investigación con financiación nacional: MEC-FEDER Grant ECO2016-77900-

Reaching social consensus family budgets: The Spanish case

The study of family budgets has been traditionally used to analyse consumers’ behaviour and estimate cost-of-living since the end of 19th century. Generally speaking, the computation of the budgets has been based on two different methodologies, the prescriptive and the descriptive method. Both present several drawbacks like the comparison among different areas, family types and over time. This paper proposes a new methodology for reaching family budgets, namely social consensus family budgets, to overcome such problems and examine the main features of the novel approach. The suggested method uses the minimization of the differences with respect to the consumer’s preferences to obtain a solution that summarizes single behaviour into a social preference. This approach is especially conceived for preferences on possibly related-expenditure groups. In addition, several algorithms are introduced to compute the social family budgets. Finally, the contribution includes the Spanish case as an example of reaching some social consensus family budgets in order to show the operational character and intuitive interpretation of the proposal approach.Este trabajo forma parte del proyecto de investigación con financiación nacional: MEC-FEDER Grant ECO2016-77900-

Exploraciones gráficas de ideas extraescolares de los alumnos sobre radiactividad

We present some aspects of radioactivity which somehow are familiar to the students, because as they pick information from outside the school, their leve1 of Knowledge of pupils is not as low as one might expect

Utilización de los residuos de la industria del corcho como sustrato hortícola

En este trabajo se pone de manifiesto la aptitud de los residuos de la industria del corcho como sustrato, alternativo a la turba rubia, para el cultivo de diversas especies vegetales. Se consideran y discuten los resultados obtenidos en diferentes ensayos, tras cuatro años de trabajo en esta línea, que han permitido caracterizar el producto desde el punto de vista físico, químico y biológico, así como realizar un seguimiento de los procesos de germinación, enraizamiento y" desarrollo de distintas plantas, en dicho residuo.It has been studied the waste of the cork industry as a new horticultural substrat. Results about physical, chemical and biological analyses of cork are presented. Also it has been studied germination, rooting and growth of different horticultural and ornamental plants on cork as potting media

Three-dimensional core-shell ferromagnetic nanowires grown by focused electron beam induced deposition

Functional nanostructured materials often rely on the combination of more than one material to confer the desired functionality or an enhanced performance of the device. Here we report the procedure to create nanoscale heterostructured materials in the form of core-shell nanowires by focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID) technologies. In our case, three-dimensional (3D) nanowires (<100 nm in diameter) with metallic ferromagnetic cores of Co- and Fe-FEBID have been grown and coated with a protective Pt-FEBID shell (ranging 10-20 nm in thickness) aimed to minimize the degradation of magnetic properties caused by the surface oxidation of the core to a non-ferromagnetic material. The structure, chemistry and magnetism of nanowire cores of Co and Fe have been characterized in Pt-coated and uncoated nanostructures to demonstrate that the morphology of the shell is conserved during Pt coating, the surface oxidation is suppressed or confined to the Pt layer, and the average magnetization of the core is strengthened up to 30%. The proposed approach paves the way to the fabrication of 3D FEBID nanostructures based on the smart alternate deposition of two or more materials combining different physical properties or added functionalities

Quality Criteria to Evaluate Performance and Scope of 2030 Agenda in Metropolitan Areas: Case Study on Strategic Planning of Environmental Municipality Management

The United Nations’ (UN) 2030 Agenda brings new governance challenges to municipal environmental planning, both in large urban centres and in metropolitan peripheries. The opportunities of the new framework of action proposed by the United Nations (UN) and its integrative, global, and transversal nature constitute advances from the previous models of municipal management based on the Local Agenda 21. This text provides evidence to apply quality criteria and validated instruments of participatory evaluation. These instruments have been built on the foundation of evaluative research, a scientific discipline that provides rigour and validity to those decisions adopted at a municipal level. A case study focused on a metropolitan area serves as a field of experimentation for this model of the modernization of environmental management structures at a local level. Details of the instruments, agents, priority decision areas, methodologies, participation processes, and quality criteria are provided, as well as an empirically validated model for participatory municipal management based on action research processes and strategic planning that favours a shared responsibility across all social groups in the decision-making process and in the development of continuous improvement activities that are committed to sustainability. Finally, a critical comparison of weaknesses and strengths is included in light of the evidence collected.Project: ‘Sustainability in Higher Education: Evaluation of the scope of the 2030 Agenda in curriculum innovation and teacher professional development in Andalusian Universities’. B-SEJ-424-UGR18. Principal researchers: José Gutiérrez-Pérez and María de Fátima Poza-Vilches

Semilleros de algarrobo y pino en sustratos de turba y corcho compostado

El residuo de la industria corchera, tras un adecuado tratamiento de compostaje, puede ser utilizado como sustrato para el cultivo de plantas en contenedor. En este trabajo se presentan los resultados obtenidos en un ensayo de sustratos, utilizando tres tipos de turbas y sus mezclas con corcho compostado para la producción de plantas de algarrobo y pino piñonero en bandejas forestales.The cork industry produces a residue wich after composting may be used as a substrate for container growing plants. Results of a substrate trial are presented. They were studied three different peat substrates and their mixtures with composted cork or the production of in forest pots.CICY

Design of materials and educational resources adapted to ETCS: project of application of the new technologies to teaching of History of the Spanish Language and its varieties

The adaptation to the new European Higher Education Area favors the assumption of the new technologies as one of the means that improve the quality of education and the process of student’s learning. The best assimilation of the theoretical and practical contents of the different subjects and the stimulus that the use of these resources for the independent learning of the student supposes, justify the attention lent to the formal aspects of the educational methodology, and to its consequent didactic process. The project that we presented finds its justification in the measures that the University of Cadiz has started up in the occasion of the process of European Convergence, and that are materialized, in this case, in the Call of Educative Innovation of the educational and investigating personnel of the European Project. Our work assumes as main target the optimization of the educational resources, from the possibilities that offer new technical means, with the creation of educational, audio-visual and computerized material, adapted to the contents of the implied subjects, and with a joint work of the teaching staff who allows the creation of a repository of computerized material that has stable character and that can be taken advantage of by the group in its later educational work. In this sense, this contribution tries to show the different lines of performance that the members of the project develop at the present time, and that takes shape in the creation of different resources as the elaboration from presentations in Power Point, the computerization of real samples of speech and the creation of a model that allows to elaborate computerized text commentaries, from hyperlinks and different linksUniversidad de Cádiz, Vicerrectorado de Tecnologías de la Información e Innovación DocenteInted2009 Proceedings C

Low-resistivity, high-resolution W-C electrical contacts fabricated by direct-write focused electron beam induced deposition

Background: The use of a focused ion beam to decompose a precursor gas and produce a metallic deposit is a widespread nanolithographic technique named focused ion beam induced deposition (FIBID). However, such an approach is unsuitable if the sample under study is sensitive to the somewhat aggressive exposure to the ion beam, which induces the effects of surface amorphization, local milling, and ion implantation, among others. An alternative strategy is that of focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID), which makes use of a focused electron beam instead, and in general yields deposits with much lower metallic content than their FIBID counterparts. Methods: In this work, we optimize the deposition of tungsten-carbon (W-C) nanowires by FEBID to be used as electrical contacts by assessing the impact of the deposition parameters during growth, evaluating their chemical composition, and investigating their electrical response. Results: Under the optimized irradiation conditions, the samples exhibit a metallic content high enough for them to be utilized for this purpose, showing a room-temperature resistivity of 550 μΩ cm and maintaining their conducting properties down to 2 K. The lateral resolution of such FEBID W-C metallic nanowires is 45 nm. Conclusions: The presented optimized procedure may prove a valuable tool for the fabrication of contacts on samples where the FIBID approach is not advise

Erratum: De Teresa, J.M. et al. Comparison between Focused Electron/Ion Beam-Induced Deposition at Room Temperature and under Cryogenic Conditions. Micromachines 2019, 10, 799

Erratum of Micromachines 2019, 10(12), 799: In Section 3.1 (page 4) on the fourth line, it says “C/cm2”. It should be changed to “uC/cm2”