Opportunity cost of CO2 emission reductions: developing vs. developed economies

Presentamos evidencia empírica sobre convergencia en magnitudes medioambientales para países desarrollados y en vías de desarrollo. Además, partiendo de un modelo standard "putty-clay" de uso de energía, introducimos un stock de contaminación sobre el que se fija un objetivo de reducción de emisiones. El análisis teórico ofrece indicaciones sobre qué variables deberían ser objeto de futuros acuerdos de reducción de emisiones entre países heterogéneos

Las TIC y el desarrollo de la capacidad emprendedora. El Boletín de Emprendedor@s

En los últimos años en Europa existe un interés creciente sobre el fomento del espíritu empresarial en el ámbito del sistema educativo. Así en octubre del 2000, el Foro sobre formación en el espíritu empresarial de Niza/Sofía Antípolis, coorganizado por la Comisión Europea y las autoridades francesas, abordó este tema. En otros documentos, como el Libro Verde sobre el espíritu empresarial de la Comisión Europea, o la Carta Europea da Pequeña Empresa adoptada por el Consejo Europeo de Lisboa del año 2000, se insta a la UE a que se eduque en estas nuevas habilidades desde una edad temprana, además de fomentar los empeños empresariales de nuestros jóvenes. Por su parte, en febrero de 2001, el Consejo de Educación, adoptó un informe sobre los objetivos futuros de los sistemas educativos. De las necesidades más destacadas identificadas en dicho informe, destaca el desarrollo del espíritu empresarial mediante los sistemas educativos y de formación. La experiencia que aquí se describe trabaja en esta línea de acción. Consiste en la elaboración y difusión de un “Boletín Mensual de Ideas Emprendedoras”, utilizando para ello herramientas de autoedición.There has been an increasing interest on the promotion of the entrepreneurship in the educational system area in Europe within recent years. So, in October 2000, the Forum on entrepreneurship of Nice / Sophia Antipolis, organized by the European Commission and the French authorities, approached this topic. In other documents, such as the Green Paper on the managerial spirit of the European Commission, or the European Charter for Small Enterprises adopted by the European Council of Lisbon in 2000, the EU is urged to educate on these new skills from an early age, as well as encourage the managerial determinations of our youth people. On the other hand, the Council of Education adopted a report on the future aims of the educational systems. The development of the entrepreneurial spirit by means of the educational and training systems stands out of the most emphasized needs identified in the above mentioned report. The experience described here works in this way consists on the elaboration and spreading of a ʺMonthly Bulletin of Enterprising Ideasʺ, by using desktop publishing

Graphycs supercomputing applied to brain image analysis with niftyreg

Abstract: Medical image processing in general and brain image processing in particular are computationally intensive tasks. Luckily, their use can be liberalized by means of techniques such as GPU programming. In this article we study NiftyReg, a brain image processing library with a GPU implementation using CUDA, and analyse different possible ways of further optimising the existing codes. We will focus on fully using the memory hierarchy and on exploiting the computational power of the CPU. The ideas that lead us towards the different attempts to change and optimize the code will be shown as hypotheses, which we will then test empirically using the results obtained from running the application. Finally, for each set of related optimizations we will study the validity of the obtained results in terms of both performance and the accuracy of the resulting images

Air Pollution Convergente and Economic Growth across European Countries

This paper analyses the role of macroeconomic performance in shaping the evolution of air pollutants in a panel of European countries from 1990 to 2000. The analysis is addressed in connection with EU environmental regulation and taking into account macroeconomic performance. We start by documenting the patterns of crosscountry differences among different pollutants. We then interpret these differences within a neoclassical growth model with pollution. Three main pieces of evidence are presented. First, we analyze the existence of convergence of pollution levels within European economies. Second, we rank countries according to its performance in terms of emissions and growth. Third, we evaluate the evolution of emissions in terms of the targets signed for 2010.Economic Growth, Air Pollution, Convergence

Healthcare data for achieving a more personalized treatment of chronic kidney disease

Producción CientíficaThe current concept of healthcare incites a more personalized treatment of diseases. To this aim, biomarkers are needed to improve decision-making facing chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. Prognostic markers provided by real-world (observational) evidence are proposed in this Special Issue entitled “Biomarkers in Chronic Kidney Disease”, with the intention to identify high-risk patients. These markers do not target measurable parameters in patients but clinical endpoints that may be in turn transformed to benefits under the effect of future interventions

Road traffic accidents among alcohol-dependent patients: The effect of treatment

Producción CientíficaIt is well known that driving under the influence of alcohol increases the risk of traffic accidents. Alcohol-dependent patients are responsible for two-thirds of motor vehicle crashes involving alcohol. Studies carried out on the general population have shown a relation between alcohol dependence and traffic accidents. The aim of the study is to analyse the effect on traffic accidents of treatment of patients with alcohol-related problems. To do so, the prevalence of traffic problems in a sample of patients with a diagnosed dependence on alcohol was assessed for three periods: during their lifetime, in the year preceding the start of treatment and over the year of treatment. A prospective study was carried out of 176 patients (147 males, 29 females; mean age 42.9 years) diagnosed as alcohol dependent according to the DSM-IV criteria in three alcoholic treatment centres in Castilla y León, Spain. 36.9% of the alcohol-dependent patients had had some kind of traffic problem during their life and 8.5% in the year prior to starting treatment. The most frequent problem was positive breath tests, followed by accidents with damage to the vehicle. Sixty-nine of the 176 patients were still receiving treatment after a year. The prevalence of traffic problems among those patients who followed treatment for 1 year (4.3%) was lower than in the year before treatment (15.9%). The study showed that the treatment is also effective in reducing traffic problems

Rediseño de un sistema centralizado de anuncios clasificados

El Sistema de Anuncios Clasificados, es principalmente un middleware que permite la gestión interna de las reglas de publicación y de negocio entre diferentes portales web, publicaciones de papel y otros sistemas de introducción de anuncios. Por motivos de rendimiento y eficiencia se decide rediseñar la aplicación creando una nueva versión productiva en paralelo a la versión existente, con la finalidad de corregir las deficiencias de ésta y sustituirla a medio plazo

Low cost multimedia sensor networks for obtaining lighting maps

In many applications, video streams, images, audio streams and scalar data are commonly used. In these fields, one of the most important magnitudes to be collected and controlled is the light intensity in different spots. So, it is extremely important to be able to deploy a network of light sensors which are usually integrated in a more general Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network (WMSN). Light control systems have increasing applications in many places like streets, roads, buildings, theaters, etc. In these situations having a dense grid of sensing spots significantly enhances measuring precision and control performance. When a great number of measuring spots are required, the cost of the sensor becomes a very important concern. In this paper the use of very low cost light sensors is proposed and it is shown how to overcome its limited performance by directionally correcting its results. A correction factor is derived for several lighting conditions. The proposed method is firstly applied to measure light in a single spot. Additionally a prototype of a sensor network is employed to draw the lighting map of a surface. Finally the sensor grid is employed to estimate the position and power of a set of light sources in a certain region of interest (street, building,…). These three applications have shown that using low cost sensors instead of luxmeters is a feasible approach to estimate illuminance levels in a room and to derive light sources maps. The obtained error measuring spots illuminance or estimating lamp emittances are quite acceptable in many practical applications.Telefonica Chair "Intelligence in Networks" of the University of Seville (Spain