Optimal Carbon Taxes for Emissions Targets in the Electricity Sector

The most dangerous effects of anthropogenic climate change can be mitigated by using emissions taxes or other regulatory interventions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper takes a regulatory viewpoint and describes the Weighted Sum Bisection method to determine the lowest emission tax rate that can reduce the anticipated emissions of the power sector below a prescribed, regulatorily-defined target. This bi-level method accounts for a variety of operating conditions via stochastic programming and remains computationally tractable for realistically large planning test systems, even when binary commitment decisions and multi-period constraints on conventional generators are considered. Case studies on a modified ISO New England test system demonstrate that this method reliably finds the minimum tax rate that meets emissions targets. In addition, it investigates the relationship between system investments and the tax-setting process. Introducing GHG emissions taxes increases the value proposition for investment in new cleaner generation, transmission, and energy efficiency; conversely, investing in these technologies reduces the tax rate required to reach a given emissions target

Quantifying the benefits of SPECint distant parallelism in simultaneous multithreading architectures

We exploit the existence of distant parallelism that future compilers could detect and characterise its performance under simultaneous multithreading architectures. By distant parallelism we mean parallelism that cannot be captured by the processor instruction window and that can produce threads suitable for parallel execution in a multithreaded processor. We show that distant parallelism can make feasible wider issue processors by providing more instructions from the distant threads, thus better exploiting the resources from the processor in the case of speeding up single integer applications. We also investigate the necessity of out-of-order processors in the presence of multiple threads of the same program. It is important to notice at this point that the benefits described are totally orthogonal to any other architectural techniques targeting a single thread.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Desarrollo de arquitecturas especializadas para Sistemas de Conducción Inteligente

El trabajo consiste en el desarrollo de un prototipo que permita clasificar modelos de conducción a partir de datos obtenidos a través de una interfaz del vehículo OBD-II. El trabajo está estructurado en tres partes. En primer lugar, se trata la problemática de la selección y recolección de datos. Se eligen que datos pueden ser de utilidad para el sistema para determinar si una conducción se está realizando de forma normal o ineficiente. Para ello se elaboran siete circuitos (divididos en callejeo, vía rápida y mixto) y se recogen datos conduciendo sobre los mismos. Acto seguido, se desarrolla una solución que permita tratar los datos obtenidos y posibilite extraer conclusiones. En esta parte se implementa una red neuronal denominada SOM, la cual permite clasificar los datos reduciendo su dimensionalidad. Finalmente, una vez disponemos de los resultados de las redes SOM se elabora una clasificación. Se muestra como las redes SOM encuentran patrones entre circuitos probados según los datos obtenidos de las variables posición del acelerador, rpm, velocidad del vehículo, temperatura en la toma de aire, temperatura del refrigerante y carga del motor

Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement in the Transition from Cybergossip to Cyberaggression: A Longitudinal Study

The internet is an area where young people establish relationships and develop socially, emotionally and morally, but it also gives rise to certain forms of online behaviour, such as cybergossip, which are associated with cyberaggression and other risky behaviour. The aims of this study were to verify whether a longitudinal association exists between cybergossip and cyberaggression, and to discover which mechanisms of moral disengagement may mediate this relationship. The final sample consisted of 1392 students (50% girls; Mage = 13.47; SD = 0.77), who were surveyed in a three-wave longitudinal study at six-month intervals. The results obtained confirmed a direct, positive relationship between cybergossip, subsequent cyberaggression and the mediation exerted by cognitive restructuring in this transition. We discuss the importance of recognizing and detecting the fine distinction between online gossip and cyberaggression with the intention of doing harm, and focus on the justifications used by young people to normalize online bullying. To sum up, there is a clear need to encourage ethical, responsible behaviour in online interactions in order to achieve well-balanced, more sustainable relationships in classrooms

Insights into Environmental Drivers on the Reproductive Cycle of Diopatra neapolitana (Polychaeta: Onuphidae)

Data are available in a publicly accessible repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7081249 (accessed on 14 September 2022).[Abstract] The reproductive cycle of Diopatra neapolitana was studied over two years in Redondela (NW Spain), considering both the monthly evolution of the percentage of individuals with oocytes and the variation of the mean oocyte size. Moreover, since three other species of Diopatra have recently been documented in regions geographically close to NW Spain, we first confirmed the identity of this species by carrying out a morphological identification of a representative number of the specimens collected. Our data showed a discontinuous reproductive season, with a period of proliferation and maturation of oocytes from January to September and asynchronous spawning events between July and October. Then, a resting period in the months of November and December was observed. We also explored the influence of some relevant environmental factors (namely, water temperature, photoperiod, salinity, primary production and upwelling index) on the observed reproductive cycle. The results suggest that water temperature is one of the most important drivers of the reproductive cycle for this species. Particularly, in Ría de Vigo, the reproductive cycle seems to be influenced by upwelling events of deep cold water that occur frequently between March and September, and that could act as a spawning-inducing switch.This study was funded by the Galician Regional Government (Xunta de Galicia), through a collaboration agreement between the Galician Regional Ministry of the Sea (Consellería do Mar) and the University of A Coruña (UDC) for the research action: Basic aspects of the biology of polychaetes exploited in the coasts of Galicia. Criteria for the management of exploited populations (reference: CIMA 18/05). Morphological identification analysis was conducted at the Universidade de Aveiro (Portugal) through the pre-doctoral fellowship programme “Ayudas para estancias predoctorales Inditex-UDC 2021”. SEM work was performed at the EMSO-PT Laboratory of Biodiversity and Connectivity & COBI, Universidade de Aveiro. EMSO-PT is funded by Portugal 2020, in the framework of COMPETE2020 (Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização-POCI), and FEDER (Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional, ref. 01/SAICT/2016) and by national funds (OE), through FCT/MCTES (ref. PINFRA/22157/2016 EMSO-PT).Portugal. Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; PINFRA/22157/2016 EMSO-PThttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.708124

Cost-effective compiler directed memory prefetching and bypassing

Ever increasing memory latencies and deeper pipelines push memory farther from the processor. Prefetching techniques aim is to bridge these two gaps by fetching data in advance to both the L1 cache and the register file. Our main contribution in this paper is a hybrid approach to the prefetching problem that combines both software and hardware prefetching in a cost-effective way by needing very little hardware support and impacting minimally the design of the processor pipeline. The prefetcher is built on-top of a static memory instruction bypassing, which is in charge of bringing prefetched values in the register file. In this paper we also present a thorough analysis of the limits of both prefetching and memory instruction bypassing. We also compare our prefetching technique with a prior speculative proposal that attacked the same problem, and we show that at much lower cost, our hybrid solution is better than a realistic implementation of speculative prefetching and bypassing. On average, our hybrid implementation achieves a 13% speed-up improvement over a version with software prefetching in a subset of numerical applications and an average of 43% over a version with no software prefetching (achieving up to a 102% for specific benchmarks).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Violence between students according to teachers of Special Education Centers in Cordoba

En los últimos años, la violencia escolar ha recibido una importante atención científica. Los estudios más recientes han revelado que los estudiantes con discapacidad son uno de los colectivos que más agresiones reciben. Sin embargo, apenas existen estudios en España sobre este problema en este tipo de estudiantes, y son verdaderamente raros los estudios que se han hecho con alumnado escolarizado en centros de educación especial. El estudio que aquí se presenta se ha dirigido a comprobar si existe violencia entre iguales en los centros especiales. Diez docentes han observado a una muestra de 55 escolares que han sido entrevistados mediante un cuestionario ad hoc. Los resultados obtenidos indican que entre estos escolares la prevalencia de cometer o padecer violencia directa, tanto física como verbal es muy alta, algo menor las agresiones verbales indirectas. No se han encontrado diferencias relativas al sexo, edad o discapacidad intelectual, aunque sí relativas a la titularidad del centro educativo y al tipo de discapacidad que presenta el estudiante. Los resultados se discuten en relación con estudios previos en centros ordinarios y se concluye que es necesario diseñar programas específicos para prevenir la violencia en este tipo de centros.In recent years, school violence has received significant scientific attention. More recent studies have revealed that students with disabilities are one of the groups whom receive more aggression. However, there are only a few national studies focusing on the relationship among student’s disabilities who attend, all of them, at special schools. The main objective of our research has been directed to check if there is violence between peers in special schools. Ten teachers who work with a sample of 55 students had been interviewed using an ad hoc questionnaire. The results show that the prevalence of these students in commit or suffer direct violence, both physical and verbal is very high, somewhat lower indirect verbal aggression. There is no a significant differences in relation with gender, age or intellectual disabilities, although there are ones by type of school (public or private) and type of disabilities. The results are discussed regard with preliminary studies in regular schools and it concludes that it is necessary to design specific programs to prevent violence in these centers

LECOMP: Low Energy COnsumption Mesh Protocol in WSN

LECOMP is a mesh network protocol that is focused on minimizing bat tery consumption of nodes in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). This paper is a improvement of a first approach [1] which proposes a method to extend the life time and the reliability in a WSN balancing transmissions saving energy throughout different nodes in order to consume homogeneously nodes’ batteries, and taking into account distances and hops of routes. First, a central node analyzes messages from nodes during a training period to determine new routing rules for each sensor. Second, the server configures the network adding the computed rules to the nodes. Third, central server can reconfigure the network routes when new balance of load is neededMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2009-14378-C02-01 (ARTEMISA

Immune response after experimental allergic encephalomyelitis in rats subjected to calorie restriction

Male Lewis rats (6 weeks-old) were submitted to a calorie restriction equivalent to 33% or 66% of food restriction. Fifteen days later, groups of 7 animals were injected with complete Freund's adjuvant plus spinal cord homogenate (SCH) to induce experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) or with complete Freund's adjuvant alone. EAE was defined solely on clinical grounds. Rats were assessed daily for clinical signs of EAE and were killed on day 15 after immunization. Both diet and SCH injection diminished body weight significantly. In contrast to rats receiving a normal diet or a 33% calorie-restricted diet, rats subjected to severe calorie restriction did not exhibit clinical signs of EAE. Concomitantly with the lack of disease manifestation, 66% of calorie-restricted rats injected with SCH showed significantly less splenic and lymph node mitogenic response to concanavalin A (Con A) and a higher splenic response to lipopolysaccharide. Fewer splenic, lymph node and thymic CD4(+ )cells, greater numbers of splenic and lymph node CD8(+ )and CD4(+)- CD8(+ )cells, and fewer splenic T, B and T-B cells, and lymph node and thymic B and T-B cells were observed. There was impaired interferon (IFN)-γ production occurred in the three examined tissues. The results are compatible with the view that the acute phase of EAE can be curtailed by severe calorie restriction, presumably through impaired IFN-γ production

Growth Dynamic of Sugarcane Cultivars C97-366 and C99-374 for Forage Production

Context: Plant growth analysis is a valuable tool to detect biomass formation and accumulation. The determination of growth indexes enables plants to adapt to different edaphoclimatic conditions, and to select the most promising responses among them. Aim: To characterize the growth dynamic of sugarcane cultivars C97-366 and C99-374, with forage purposes. Methods: A randomized experimental block design with three replicas was used. The following growth indicators were evaluated: foliage surface, foliage surface index, crop growth rate, and net monthly assimilation rate, at 181 days (February) and 342 days (July), after planting. Correlation analyses were made to determine the best model fit for every indicator evaluated in the two cultivars, as well as the analysis of variance of regressions. Results: Cultivar C97-366 was fit to a linear model for the foliage surface index, crop growth rate, and net assimilation rate; the foliage surface was fit to a polynomial model. Cultivar C99-374 was fit to a polynomial model for the foliage surface index, crop growth rate, and net assimilation rate; the foliage surface index was fit to a linear model. Conclusions: Cultivars C97-366 and C99-374 showed genetic and morphological characteristics that lead to efficient physiological processes that determine proper biomass production