A case for merging the ILP and DLP paradigms

The goal of this paper is to show that instruction level parallelism (ILP) and data-level parallelism (DLP) can be merged in a single architecture to execute vectorizable code at a performance level that can not be achieved using either paradigm on its own. We will show that the combination of the two techniques yields very high performance at a low cost and a low complexity. We will show that this architecture can reach a performance equivalent to a superscalar processor that sustained 10 instructions per cycle. We will see that the machine exploiting both types of parallelism improves upon the ILP-only machine by factors of 1.5-1.8. We also present a study on the scalability of both paradigms and show that, when we increase resources to reach a 16-issue machine, the advantage of the ILP+DLP machine over the ILP-only machine increases up to 2.0-3.45. While the peak achieved IPC for the ILP machine is 4, the ILP+DLP machine exceeds 10 instructions per cycle.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Ruthenium deposited onto graphitic carbon modified with boron for the intensified photocatalytic production of benzaldehyde

The selective oxidation of added-value aromatic alcohols into aldehydes of high interest via photocatalysis has been postulated as a green and competitive oxidative reaction at mild conditions. This work is focused on the design of a tertiary graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) based photocatalysts competitive for the photocatalytic production of benzaldehyde in an aqueous solution. The polymeric g-C3N4 has been modified in an easy one-pot green synthesis scheme, with the incorporation of boron in the polymeric structure and the deposition of ruthenium nanoparticles. The Ru ratio within 0.5–4% was assessed. The photocatalysts were fully characterized (XRD, FTIR, XPS, N2 isotherms, DRS-UV–visible, and PL) and the photocatalytic activity was assessed in the oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde in an aqueous solution. The incorporation of boron enhanced the selectivity towards benzaldehyde due to enhanced separation charges suggested by the photoluminescence technique; whereas ruthenium improved the reaction rate of the alcohol, affecting negatively the selectivity though. The sample containing 1% of Ru was selected as the optimum in terms of selectivity. The relative contribution of the involved reactive oxidant species was assessed by chemical scavenger tests, highlighting the contribution of the photo-generated holes followed by O2•‾. The analysis of the band’s alignment of the g-C3N4 before the modification with boron and ruthenium supports the enhancement by rising the redox potential of the holes released in the valence band

Boosted Activity of g-C3N4/UiO-66-NH2 Heterostructures for the Photocatalytic Degradation of Contaminants in Water

The combination of graphitic carbon nitride and the metal-organic framework UiO-66-NH2 has been developed with the aim to enhance the photocatalytic activity of pure semiconductors. Different proportions of g-C3N4 and UiO-66-NH2 were combined. Complete characterization analysis of the resulting photocatalytic materials was conducted, including N-2 adsorption isotherms, XRD, FTIR, STEM-EDX microscopy, DRS-UV-visible, and photoluminescence. The photocatalytic activity was tested in an aqueous solution for the removal of acetaminophen as the target pollutant. From the obtained results, less than 50% of UiO-66-NH2 incorporated in the g-C3N4 structure enhanced the photocatalytic degradation rate of both bare semiconductors. Concretely, 75% of g-C3N4 in the final g-C3N4 /UiO-66-NH2 heterostructure led to the best results, i.e., complete acetaminophen elimination initially at 5 mg.L-1 in 2 h with a pseudo-first order rate constant of ca. 2 h(-1). The presence of UiO-66-NH2 in the g-C3N4 enhanced the optoelectronic properties, concretely, the separation of the photo-generated charges was improved according to photoluminescence characterization. The better photo-absorption uptake was also confirmed by the determination of the quantum efficiency values of the heterostructure if compared to either pure g-C3N4 or UiO-66-NH2. This photocatalyst with the best activity was further tested at different pH values, with the best degradation rate at a pH close to the pH(pzc) similar to 4.15 of the solid. Sequential recycling tests demonstrated that the heterostructure was stable after five cycles of use, i.e., 15 h. A high contribution of photo-generated holes in the process of the degradation of acetaminophen, followed marginally by superoxide radicals, was suggested by scavenger tests.University of Granada PPJIA2019-09 PPJIA2021-3

Effectiveness of an intervention for improving drug prescription in primary care patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy:Study protocol of a cluster randomized clinical trial (Multi-PAP project)

This study was funded by the Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias ISCIII (Grant Numbers PI15/00276, PI15/00572, PI15/00996), REDISSEC (Project Numbers RD12/0001/0012, RD16/0001/0005), and the European Regional Development Fund ("A way to build Europe").Background: Multimorbidity is associated with negative effects both on people's health and on healthcare systems. A key problem linked to multimorbidity is polypharmacy, which in turn is associated with increased risk of partly preventable adverse effects, including mortality. The Ariadne principles describe a model of care based on a thorough assessment of diseases, treatments (and potential interactions), clinical status, context and preferences of patients with multimorbidity, with the aim of prioritizing and sharing realistic treatment goals that guide an individualized management. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a complex intervention that implements the Ariadne principles in a population of young-old patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. The intervention seeks to improve the appropriateness of prescribing in primary care (PC), as measured by the medication appropriateness index (MAI) score at 6 and 12months, as compared with usual care. Methods/Design: Design:pragmatic cluster randomized clinical trial. Unit of randomization: family physician (FP). Unit of analysis: patient. Scope: PC health centres in three autonomous communities: Aragon, Madrid, and Andalusia (Spain). Population: patients aged 65-74years with multimorbidity (≥3 chronic diseases) and polypharmacy (≥5 drugs prescribed in ≥3months). Sample size: n=400 (200 per study arm). Intervention: complex intervention based on the implementation of the Ariadne principles with two components: (1) FP training and (2) FP-patient interview. Outcomes: MAI score, health services use, quality of life (Euroqol 5D-5L), pharmacotherapy and adherence to treatment (Morisky-Green, Haynes-Sackett), and clinical and socio-demographic variables. Statistical analysis: primary outcome is the difference in MAI score between T0 and T1 and corresponding 95% confidence interval. Adjustment for confounding factors will be performed by multilevel analysis. All analyses will be carried out in accordance with the intention-to-treat principle. Discussion: It is essential to provide evidence concerning interventions on PC patients with polypharmacy and multimorbidity, conducted in the context of routine clinical practice, and involving young-old patients with significant potential for preventing negative health outcomes. Trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT02866799Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Extinction risk of Mesoamerican crop wild relatives

Ensuring food security is one of the world's most critical issues as agricultural systems are already being impacted by global change. Crop wild relatives (CWR)—wild plants related to crops—possess genetic variability that can help adapt agriculture to a changing environment and sustainably increase crop yields to meet the food security challenge. Here we report the results of an extinction risk assessment of 224 wild relatives of some of the world's most important crops (i.e. chilli pepper, maize, common bean, avocado, cotton, potato, squash, vanilla and husk tomato) in Mesoamerica—an area of global significance as a centre of crop origin, domestication and of high CWR diversity. We show that 35% of the selected CWR taxa are threatened with extinction according to The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List demonstrates that these valuable genetic resources are under high anthropogenic threat. The dominant threat processes are land use change for agriculture and farming, invasive and other problematic species (e.g. pests, genetically modified organisms) and use of biological resources, including overcollection and logging. The most significant drivers of extinction relate to smallholder agriculture—given its high incidence and ongoing shifts from traditional agriculture to modern practices (e.g. use of herbicides)—smallholder ranching and housing and urban development and introduced genetic material. There is an urgent need to increase knowledge and research around different aspects of CWR. Policies that support in situ and ex situ conservation of CWR and promote sustainable agriculture are pivotal to secure these resources for the benefit of current and future generations

A case for merging the ILP and DLP paradigms

The goal of this paper is to show that instruction level parallelism (ILP) and data-level parallelism (DLP) can be merged in a single architecture to execute vectorizable code at a performance level that can not be achieved using either paradigm on its own. We will show that the combination of the two techniques yields very high performance at a low cost and a low complexity. We will show that this architecture can reach a performance equivalent to a superscalar processor that sustained 10 instructions per cycle. We will see that the machine exploiting both types of parallelism improves upon the ILP-only machine by factors of 1.5-1.8. We also present a study on the scalability of both paradigms and show that, when we increase resources to reach a 16-issue machine, the advantage of the ILP+DLP machine over the ILP-only machine increases up to 2.0-3.45. While the peak achieved IPC for the ILP machine is 4, the ILP+DLP machine exceeds 10 instructions per cycle.Peer Reviewe

Enhanced boron modified graphitic carbon nitride for the selective photocatalytic production of benzaldehyde

Graphitic carbon nitride is a non-metal photocatalyst easily prepared from nitrogen organic compounds through green synthesis processes that do not require the use of solvents. This work proposes the use of boron to modify the layered g-C3N4 structure by incorporating B to induce defects aimed at the enhancement of the photocatalytic activity. Boron-modified graphitic carbon has been obtained using elemental B and NaBH4 as precursors. The XRD and FTIR characterization results suggest that the C and N positions of g-C3N4 can be replaced by B, resulting in a layered modified structure in which the tri-s-triazine units are altered. The exchange of B atoms differed from the boron precursor according to the analysis of the chemical properties of the surface. Thus, the elemental B had a preference to exchange positions with N atoms, whereas the use of NaBH4 led to the substitution of B into the C positions. This difference considerably affected the photocatalytic activity during the selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol. The sample modified with NaBH4 led to the highest oxidation rate and selectivity linked to a lesser recombination effect than the other samples according to photoluminescence tests. This work provides evidence about the convenience of the selection of precursors during the modification of g-C3N4. The photon absorbance rate was determined for the estimation of the quantum yield. Although the photon absorbance rate was quite similar in all the cases, the different registered kinetics led to a maximum quantum efficiency of 0.15% for NaBCN

Elaboración de unidades didácticas como globalización del currículum

Este proyecto, continuación de un trabajo iniciado el curso pasado, está dirigido a educación infantil. Participan 13 docentes pertenecientes a 5 centros públicos situados en Las Palmas. Objetivos: 1. Elaborar las unidades didácticas en equipo. 2. Ponerlas en práctica llevándolas al aula. 3.Programar las actividades de las unidades de forma globalizada en torno a contenidos significativos para el niño teniendo como eje central los temas transversales. 4. Adaptar las unidades al entorno sociocultural de cada centro. 5. Elaborar materiales para el desarrollo de la unidad didáctica. 6. Continuar el trabajo según el modelo pedagógico constructivo crítico basado en la acción en el aula y en la investigación por parte del alumno. En cuanto a la metodología a llevar, se parte de las ideas previas del niño, de sus intereses y necesidades, basada en la experimentación, se organiza la clase en rincones de aprendizaje, ambientados según la unidad. Los objetivos propuestos se alcanzaron en alto grado, a excepción del tercero, que no se programó en torno a los temas transversales ya que se consideró abarcar toda la práctica educativa. Las unidades que se realizaron fueron nueve en total, una para cada mes del curso, se llevaron a la práctica en el aula. Para cada unidad se elaboró material para los rincones, bien por el profesor, bien por los propios alumnos. El trabajo realizado por el grupo se considera muy positivo y práctico porque se lleva a la práctica diariamente y en su totalidad. Es muy motivador para el niño ya que se programa teniendo en cuenta sus intereses. Se propone continuar con el trabajo para el proximo curso..Dirección General de Ordenación e Innovación EducativaCanariasES

Desarrollamos el curriculo con las TIC

Se usan las nuevas tecnologías de la información y comunicación, TIC, para el desarrollo del currículo del centro mediante la creación de nuevas unidades didácticas, contenidos y actividades. Se plantean objetivos como buscar estrategias y procedimientos de trabajo propios y compartidos para el uso de las TIC en el centro; obtener conocimientos propios y válidos de las herramientas utilizadas para poder realizar tales materiales; trabajar asiduamente con soportes tecnológicos novedosos como cámaras de vídeo, pizarra digital o videoproyector que permitan investigar y actuar en el entorno del centro; y reflexionar sobre el impacto que genera el uso de las TIC en el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje. Para llevarlo a cabo, en primer lugar se forma al profesorado para que conozcan lo básico tanto del software como del hardware; poco a poco, los profesores elaboran sus recursos para las clases y finalmente lo ponen en práctica con los alumnos. Se incluye un CD-ROM con los materiales elaborados.Madrid (Comunidad Autónoma). Consejería de Educación. Dirección General de Ordenación AcadémicaMadridMadrid (Comunidad Autónoma). Subdirección General de Formación del Profesorado. CRIF Las Acacias; General Ricardos 179 - 28025 Madrid; Tel. + 34915250893ES