Teleological structure of scientific and mathematical education

One of the main educational objectives in the current Spanish curricula is to develop mathematical and scientific competences, understood as the set of skills and abilities needed to apply Mathematics and Science in situations where are required. This is therefore closely related, on one hand, to the functionality of the knowledge, in the sense of its usefulness in problem solving and in mathematical and science modeling problems. And, on the other hand, is related to the understanding of disciplinary knowledge, a cognitive phenomenon that enables and gives competence to the individual to elaborate contextualized and accurate answers. These answers involve the use of mathematical and scientific knowledge in some of the categories of their phenomenological and epistemological dimensions. For this reason, in this work we carry out a theoretical and reflexive analysis that tries to determine which aspects of the Mathematics and Science Education should be promoted in order to optimize the formative dimension of an individual in these disciplines. This dimension, frequently forgotten in learning and teaching processes, turns out to be, in conjunction with the functional and instrumental dimensions, necessary to acquire the appropriate knowledge in Mathematics and Science that will enable future citizens to permanently adapt to the environment and eventually transform it positively. The results of the analysis show the components of this dimension that should be prioritized in the Science and Mathematics Education: the intellectual autonomy, understood as the ability to think for ourselves and to put in use our abilities and skills to generate information to solve real life problems and to make the right decisions; the moral autonomy, defined as the capacity to face with real life problems with ethical implications; and the social autonomy, understood as the aptitude to make decisions using social abilities and skills.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech.“Criterios e instrumentos de evaluación de unidades de enseñanza y aprendizaje” (PPIT.UMA.B1.2017/16) financiado por la Universidad de Málaga en la convocatoria de 2017-2018

Los mitos griegos de la creación. La Cosmología

Sin resume

Optimal design of sustainable power-to-fuels supply chains for seasonal energy storage

[EN]Energy storage is key in enabling high penetration of intermittent renewable sources into the energy supply mix. One attractive way of storing energy is to do so in the form of chemical fuels produced from electricity, also referred to as “power-to-fuels”. Apart from its promise for large-scale seasonal energy storage, it also has advantages at the supply chain level due to the ease of transportation. Therefore, these fuels have been proposed as energy carriers for various applications. In this work, these potential benefits are assessed by optimizing the design of power-to-fuels supply chains for seasonal energy storage over large geographical regions. Distribution decisions are integrated with hourly production decisions over the time horizon of a year in order to account for seasonal changes and obtain plant capacities suitable for time-varying operation. A heuristic decomposition approach is developed to solve industrial-scale instances of the resulting optimization problem. The proposed framework is applied to a region of Spain where the energy transition is particularly significant due to the decommissioning of coal-based power generation facilities. The results show how an efficient power-to-fuels supply chain can help replace conventional with renewable energy sources

From the manuscript to the screen: Implementing electronic editions of mediaeval handwritten material

This paper describes the electronic editing of the Middle English material housed in the Hunterian Collection at Glasgow University Library (GUL), a joint project undertaken by the universities of Málaga, Glasgow, Oviedo, Murcia and Jaén which pursues the compilation of an electronic corpus of mediaeval Fachprosa in the vernacular (http://hunter.filosofia.uma.es/manuscripts). The paper therefore addresses the concept of electronic editing as applied to The corpus of Late Middle English scientific prose with the following objectives: (a) to describe the editorial principles and the theoretical implications adopted; and (b) to present the digital layout and the tool implemented for data retrieval. A diplomatic approach is then proposed wherein the editorial intervention is kept to a minimum. Accordingly, features such as lineation, punctuation and emendations are every now and then accurately reproduced as by the scribe’s hand whilst abbreviations are yet expanded in italics. GUL MS Hunter 497, holding a 15th-century English version of Aemilius Macer’s De viribus herbarum, will be used as a sample demonstration (Calle-Martín – Miranda-García, forthcoming).The present research has been funded by the Autonomous Government of Andalusia (project P07-HUM–02609) and by the Spanish Ministry of Education (project FFI2008-02336)

Sustainable DMC production from CO2 and renewable ammonia and methanol

[EN]One of the main goals of the green chemistry is to develop sustainable and less hazardous chemical processes and products. Dimethyl carbonate (DMC) is attracting attention due to the wide variety of applications and the possibility of producing it from carbon dioxide. In this work, the DMC production process via urea has been optimized. Two main sections can be distinguished: the synthesis of urea and the production of DMC. An equation based approach is used to model the system. The DMC production from renewable ammonia/methanol/CO2 presents a promising production cost, around 520 €/t. The production of urea alone has also been evaluated in this work. A sensitivity analysis is carried out showing the influence of the methanol price in the DMC cost and the ammonia price in the urea cost. A simplified sustainability index is used to evaluate the environmental performance of urea/DMC production

ITERL: A Wireless Adaptive System for Efficient Road Lighting

This work presents the development and construction of an adaptive street lighting system that improves safety at intersections, which is the result of applying low-power Internet of Things (IoT) techniques to intelligent transportation systems. A set of wireless sensor nodes using the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.15.4 standard with additional internet protocol (IP) connectivity measures both ambient conditions and vehicle transit. These measurements are sent to a coordinator node that collects and passes them to a local controller, which then makes decisions leading to the streetlight being turned on and its illumination level controlled. Streetlights are autonomous, powered by photovoltaic energy, and wirelessly connected, achieving a high degree of energy efficiency. Relevant data are also sent to the highway conservation center, allowing it to maintain up-to-date information for the system, enabling preventive maintenance.Consejería de Fomento y Vivienda Junta de Andalucía G-GI3002 / IDIOFondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional G-GI3002 / IDI

Anisotropic thermal magnetoresistance for an active control of radiative heat transfer

We predict a huge anisotropic thermal magnetoresistance (ATMR) in the near-field radiative heat transfer between magneto-optical particles when the direction of an external magnetic field is changed with respect to the heat current direction. We illustrate this effect with the case of two InSb spherical particles where we find that the ATMR amplitude can reach values of up to 800% for a magnetic field of 5 T, which is many orders of magnitude larger than its spintronic analogue in electronic devices. This thermomagnetic effect could find broad applications in the fields of ultrafast thermal management as well as magnetic and thermal remote sensing.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Alteration mechanisms on the stones of the Cathedral of Granada (Spain)

Español: Se analizan los diversos mecanismos de alteración que actúan sobre los materiales pétreos usados en la Catedral de Granada. Se estudia con detalle la acción del agua, influencia antropogénica, oscilaciones térmicas, factores de incompatibilidad, movimientos sísmicos y factores de tipo biológico. Inglés: Alteration mechanisms on the stones of the Catedral of Granada, Spai

Producción ajustada y recursos humanos: resultados sobre la efectividad empresarial

Nuestro artículo permite comprobar las prácticas de recursos humanos (RRHH) que están asociadas a la implantación de la producción ajustada (PA) y la efectividad organizacional que se obtiene de la combinación de ambas. Incidiendo en este sentido, las empresas con un grado mayor de implantación de la PA se preocupan de formar a una cantidad superior de empleados en estas prácticas así como de desarrollar más ampliamente los procesos de promoción interna. Sin embargo, no sucede lo mismo con la remuneración variable que no se ve afectada por la introducción de la PA. Por otro lado, la combinación de PA y de algunas prácticas de RRHH ha demostrado que reduce el tiempo de fabricación, los niveles de inventario y el tamaño de lote económico, y aumenta los indicadores de productividad y productividad y calidad conjuntamente. Con esta investigación, extendemos el trabajo de otros autores centrándonos en un sector apenas estudiado. Nuestra muestra consiste en un conjunto de empresas bastante homogéneas, lo que permite examinar la relación entre nuestras variables al tiempo que mantenemos controladas otras. Estos resultados pueden ayudar a los responsables de los departamentos de recursos humanos y de producción a potenciar sus logros organizativos. This paper indicates the Human Resource Management (HRM) practices associated with the introduction of Lean Production (LP) and the organizational results obtained. Companies that make the most of LP practices are also those that take care to train workers in using these practices as well as improving their internal promotion. However, the same is not true for the pay for performance system. The combination of LP with some HRM practices reduce lead time, inventory and economic order quantity, and boosts productivity separately and jointly with quality. We extend the work of other researchers by focusing on a sector that has been very little studied to date. The sample consists of a set of plants that are fairly homogeneous, which facilitates the analysis of the relationships between the selected variables while keeping other variables controlled. These results can thus be used to help human resource and production departments in improving organizational performance

Measurement of disparities between indicators associated with the welfare in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) of Asia

Medir los factores que inciden en el bienestar social de los países es una tarea compleja, especialmente cuando se trata de países pocos desarrollados. A pesar de todo, se han producido avances relevantes, aunque sigue siendo un camino por el que hay que seguir buscando procedimientos que lo enriquezcan. En este artículo, se propone una medición de las disparidades entre indicadores de bienestar social aplicados a un grupo de países muy afectados por la pobreza, los países menos adelantados (PMA), que según la terminología de la Conferencia de Naciones Unidas para el Comercio y el Desarrollo (UNCTAD) son los más pobres entre los pobres. En nuestro análisis nos referiremos a los del continente asiático. La novedad de este trabajo es que el índice propuesto se ha construido atendiendo a un número de variables más amplia que los índices de bienestar más utilizados y a los criterios definidos en los Objetivos de desarrollo de la Declaración del Milenio, entre los que existe un consenso general que son los que determinan los niveles de subdesarrollo de los países. Como técnica aplicada a los datos proporcionados por Naciones Unidas y recogidos en el Informe Anual de los PMA, se ha empleado el método de distancia P2 para el año 2007, el último para el que disponíamos de datos definitivos. Este índice integra variables socioeconómicas, que permiten una ordenación territorial de los PMA de Asia, en función de esos indicadores parciales.___________________________________________Measuring factors that affect countries’ social welfare is a complex task, especially in the case of the Least Developed Countries. Despite this difficulty, important advances have been made, though many more remain to be made in the search for procedures that will enrich these analyses. In this article we present a new proposal for the measurement of disparities between indicators of social welfare, applied to a group of countries especially affected by poverty: the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) which in the terminology of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) are the poorest of the poor. In our analysis we will refer to the Asian continent. Our index is novel in that it has been constructed taking into account a larger number of variables than the welfare indices most usually used, and the criteria defined in the Goals of the Millennium Declaration, which are generally considered to determine countries’ levels of underdevelopment . As technique applied to the data, provided by the UN and listed in the Annual Report of the LDCs for 2007, the latest year for which definitive data were available, we have used the P2 distance method. This index integrates socio-economic variables that permit a ranking of the LDCs of Asia, in terms of those partial indicators