Fully porous GaN p-n junctions fabricated by Chemical Vapor Deposition: a green technology towards more efficient LEDs

Producción CientíficaPorous GaN based LEDs produced by corrosion etching techniques demonstrated enhanced light extraction efficiency in the past. However, these fabrication techniques require further postgrown processing steps, which increase the price of the final system. In this paper, we review the process followed towards the fabrication of fully porous GaN p-n junctions directly during the growth step, using a sequential chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process to produce the different layers that form the p-n junction.Junta de Castilla y León (programa de apoyo a proyectos de investigación – Ref. VA302U13

The rkpU gene of Sinorhizobium fredii HH103 is required for bacterial K-antigen polysaccharide production and for efficient nodulation with soybean but not with cowpea

In this work, the role of the rkpU and rkpJ genes in the production of the K-antigen polysaccharides (KPS) and in the symbiotic capacity of Sinorhizobium fredii HH103, a broad host-range rhizobial strain able to nodulate soybean and many other legumes, was studied. The rkpJ- and rkpU-encoded products are orthologous to Escherichia coli proteins involved in capsule export. S. fredii HH103 mutant derivatives were contructed in both genes. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the role of rkpU in KPS production has been studied in rhizobia. Both rkpJ and rkpU mutants were unable to produce KPS. The rkpU derivative also showed alterations in its lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Neither KPS production nor rkpJ and rkpU expression was affected by the presence of the flavonoid genistein. Soybean (Glycine max) plants inoculated with the S. fredii HH103 rkpU and rkpJ mutants showed reduced nodulation and clear symptoms of nitrogen starvation. However, neither the rkpJ nor the rkpU mutants were significantly impaired in their symbiotic interaction with cowpea (Vigna unguiculata). Thus, we demonstrate for the first time to our knowledge the involvement of the rkpU gene in rhizobial KPS production and also show that the symbiotic relevance of the S. fredii HH103 KPS depends on the specific bacterium–legume interaction

Ecos de la academia: Revista de la Facultad de Educación, Ciencia y Tecnología - FECYT Nro 6

Ecos de la academia, Revista de la Facultad de Educación Ciencia y Tecnología es una publicación científica de la Universidad Técnica del Norte, con revisión por pares a doble ciego que publica artículos en idioma español, quichua, portugués e inglés. Se edita con una frecuencia semestral con dos números por año.En ella se divulgan trabajos originales e inéditos generados por los investigadores, docentes y estudiantes de la FECYT, y contribuciones de profesionales de instituciones docentes e investigativas dentro y fuera del país, con calidad, originalidad y relevancia en las áreas de ciencias sociales y tecnología aplicada.Modelos multidimensionales del bienestar en contextos de enseñanza- aprendizaje: una revisión sistemática. Nuevas tendencias para el área académica de la Publicidad en la zona 1 del Ecuador. Propuesta de un curso de escritura académica bajo la base de modelos experienciales. Aproximación al estudio de las emociones. Seguimiento a egresados y graduados para actualizar el perfil de egreso y profesional. Impacto de la Gerencia de Calidad en el clima organizacional en Educación Básica. Comunicación efectiva del gerente educativo orientada al manejo de conflictos en el personal docente. Meritocracia: Democratización o exclusión en el acceso a la educación superior en Ecuador. Asertividad y desempeño académico en estudiantes universitarios. La creatividad en la formación profesional. Aspectos metodológicos en el proceso de enseñanza- aprendizaje de la gimnasia en estudiantes de Educación Física. English Language Learning Interaction through Web 2.0 Technologies. La sistematización de la práctica educativa y su relación con la metodología de la investigación. El ozono y la oxigenación hiperbárica: una vía para mejorar la recuperación en lesiones deportivas. La labor tutorial: Independencia del aprendizaje en el contexto universitario. Motivación hacia la profesión docente en la Enseñanza Secundaria. El uso académico de Facebook y WhatsApp en estudiantes universitarios... La educación superior en Ecuador: situación actual y factores de mejora de la calidad. El Proyecto de Investigación “Imbabura Étnica”

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

Religious Change vs Cultural Change: The Case of Islamisation in the Early Medieval Period

Edited by Chantal Bielmann and Brittany Thomas.The concepts of religion and culture belong to that sphere of social knowledge where definitions are imprecise by necessity and where boundaries between different elements are blurred. No one is surprised to see concepts like Christianity or Islam used at the same time as religious and cultural markers, with more emphasis on one or the other meaning depending on the particular circumstances of the mention. However, that does not mean that we should not try to keep an awareness of the differences between religion and culture, because they are certainly different spheres of life. In other words, while a certain overlap between the two concepts is understandable (and necessary, as I explain below), the lack of a critical approach to try to keep them separate may produce major misinterpretations or underplay of historical and archaeological evidence. This does not mean, however, that we should not consider religion as a part of culture; rather the opposite: I argue that once the concept of religion is analysed in relation to material culture, its connections to other aspects of culture and society become evident. In this chapter I offer an example of how this conceptual separation contributes to refining our interpretation of the process of Islamisation in the early Islamic period (that is, during the first expansion of Islam (c. AD 622-1000), which roughly is contemporaneous to the early medieval period in Europe). I look at some examples of the transformation and creation of sacred spaces by Muslims in the Near East and in Iberia, highlighting the common and specific intricacies of each one of them, to finally extract some conclusions. My aim is to question the idea of Islamisation as a process that can be described only as a religious change and to suggest instead that the only way in which we can really understand it is considering a more transcendental cultural transformation in which changes in religious beliefs need to be tied to historical changes that encompass the material world and the ways in which people engage with it. The case that I will make in this chapter is that of the construction of sacred spaces and people’s entanglement with them in daily life.Peer reviewe

Cambio tecnológico y social en al-Andalus: un caso de producción tecnológica

Texto en español desde la página 49One way to understand the history of achievements and innovations that underlie the narrative of al-Andalus is to consider it from the point of view of technology. This does not include general scientific or intellectual advances made by Andalusis or in al-Andalus, although it arguably could. Here, technology will refer to the field created in the intersection of social and technical developments over a historical period. We present a brief theoretical explanation of this perspective, followed by a critique of the current understanding of the technological history of al-Andalus. We then take an alternative look at the history of al-Andalus, taking into account the accumulation of changing elements of pottery production—style, design and technique—during the first centuries of Islamic presence in Iberia.The editor of this book would like to thank Professor Thilo Rehren for his support. Images in this book have been graciously provided without charge by the FP7 Project Mediterranean Mountainous Landscapes: a historical approach to cultural heritage based on traditional agrosystems (no. 613265, MEMOLA), ArqueoUIB Research Group of the University of the Balearic Islands, QNRF Project The Crowded Desert of UCL Qatar and Qatar Museums (NPRP8-1582-6-56), Teresa Bonet, Marcos García García and Sarah Inskip. A number of images have been purchased from iStock by Getty Images, including the cover.Peer reviewe

Langzeitmodelle permamenter und nicht permanenter Siedlungen im 'Crowded Desert' in Nordwest-Katar

Edited by Piers Dixon & Claudia Theune.[EN] This paper aims to discuss some aspects about mobility and temporality of settlements, and in particular of dwelling spaces in Qatar with the data obtained in an archaeological survey carried out between 2015 and 2019 in the northwest of the country, the Crowded Desert Project (CDP). The paper starts with the theoretical underpinnings that make the study of nomadic and sedentary societies in the Middle East so different to European rural societies and that guided the design of the CDP. It then goes on to describe the geographical and historical particularities of the study area. A discussion on how narratives of resilience and narratives of change can be used in the discussion of the remains of dwellings follows. Finally, the paper concludes with a reflection on the agency of nomads, frequently overlooked as factors in explanations of nomadic and sedentary cycles in favour of systemic factors like climatic or economic changes. Without underplaying these factors, it is possible to conceive nomadic agency as a much more influential and proactive reason for changes or resilience in lifestyle.[FR] Cet article vise à discuter certains aspects archéologiques concernant la mobilité et la temporalité des colonies (et notamment des habitations) au Qatar grâce aux données obtenues lors du Projet du Désert Peuplé (CDP) entre 2015 et 2019 dans le nord-ouest du pays. L’article commence avec les bases théoriques qui rendent l’étude des sociétés nomades et sédentaires du Moyen-Orient si différentes des sociétés européennes rurales, ce qui a servi de guide pour le CDP. Il comprend ensuite une description géographique et historique des particularités de la zone étudiée. Ensuite, une discussion à propos de la résilience ou du changement des habitations est introduite dans l’interprétation des vestiges. Et pour conclure, une analyse de la répartition des nomades, trop souvent ignorée dans l’interprétation des cycles nomades et sédentaires en faveur des facteurs climatiques ou économiques. Sans ignorer ces facteurs, il est possible de concevoir cette répartition des nomades comme beaucoup plus importante et jouant un rôle actif contribuant au changement ou à la continuité d’un certain mode de vie.[DE] In diesem Artikel werden einige Aspekte der Mobilität und Zeitlichkeit von Siedlungen, insbesondere von Wohnstätten in Katar erörtert. Grundlage sind Daten, die durch das Crowded Dessert Project (CDP) erhoben wurden, einem zwischen 2015 und 2019 im Nordwesten des Landes entwickelten archäologischen Survey. Der Artikel beginnt mit einer theoretischen Teil, in dem die Erforschung von nomadischen und sesshaften Gesellschaften im Nahen Osten im Gegensatz zur Erforschung europäisch-ländlichen Gesellschaften deutlich gemacht wird und der in das Design des CDP einleitet. Anschließend werden die geographischen und historischen Besonderheiten des Forschungsgebietes beschrieben. Darauf folgt eine Erörterung wie Narrative von Resilienz und Wandel in der Diskussion über die archäologischen Befunde verwendet werden können. Der Artikel endet mit einer Betrachtung zur 'Agency' der Nomaden, die häufig als Erklärung für nomadische und sesshafte Zyklen zugunsten von systemischen Faktoren wie klimatische oder wirtschaftliche Veränderungen übersehen wird. Ohne diese Faktoren zu unterschätzen, besteht die Möglichkeit 'Agency' als einen viel einflussreicheren und proaktiveren Grund für Veränderung und Resilienz zu verstehen.The Crowded Desert Project, on which this paper is based, was made possible by NPRP Grant No. 8-1582-6-056 from the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF).Peer reviewe