The Perception of Residential Water Tariff, Consumption, and Cost: Evidence of its Determinants Using Survey Data

In a survey of 1, 500 households in Zaragoza (Spain), we found that respondents did not accurately know what the price of water was, and what the characteristics of the water tariff were, how much water they consumed, or how much it cost them; they thought they consumed less water than they actually did, and thought that their consumption level was normal; they believed they paid more than they really did, and considered the payments to be appropriate or expensive. Based on this sample of households, this paper analyses what determines the level of accuracy in the perception of consumers about their water tariff, their water consumption, and their total water cost, or, in other words, what determines the closeness between their perception and reality. The methodology applied is based on maximum likelihood estimates using various probit/logit models. The results obtained allow to identify the collectives to whom an information policy should be directed in order to approximate their perceptions closer to the real tariff, consumption and cost of water in households, and to point out the kind of information that should be transmitted in order to contribute to the preservation of water resources

La enseñanza del Derecho en el tardofranquismo

Relato fundado en la experiencia personal del autor sobre la enseñanza recibida en la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Zaragoza entre 1970 y 1975, poniendo de relieve las carencias del sistema y también algunos indicios de renovación. This report is based on the author’s personal experience of the teaching received at the Faculty of Law of the University of Zaragoza between 1970 and 1975, highlighting the shortcomings of the system and also some signs of renewal

Effects of long-term vaccination against Coxiella burnetii on the fertility of high-producing dairy cows

The impact of long-term vaccination against Coxiella burnetii on the fertility of cows was studied. Double vaccinations three weeks apart at the start of the third trimester of gestation in each of two consecutive pregnancies were applied. The final study population consisted of 410 cows after the first vaccination round. Based on the odds ratios, the likelihood of early fetal loss (pregnancy loss following a positive pregnancy diagnosis before Day 90 of gestation) was higher in control cows (OR = 1.42) than in vaccinated cows. The final study population consisted of 336 cows after the second round of vaccination. According to the odds ratios, vaccinated C. burnetii seronegative cows were less likely to be subfertile (> 3 AI) (OR = 0.4) compared to non-vaccinated seronegative animals, and the likelihood of early fetal loss was lower in vaccinated C. burnetii seropositive animals (OR = 0.3) compared to non-vaccinated seronegative cows. Seropositivity to C. burnetii was positively related to twin pregnancy after the two rounds of vaccination (OR = 2.1 and 3.5, respectively). These results indicate that two consecutive vaccination rounds against C. burnetii in advanced gestation reduce subfertility and early fetal loss in dairy cows

Developing Efficient Discrete Simulations on Multicore and GPU Architectures

In this paper we show how to efficiently implement parallel discrete simulations on multicoreandGPUarchitecturesthrougharealexampleofanapplication: acellularautomatamodel of laser dynamics. We describe the techniques employed to build and optimize the implementations using OpenMP and CUDA frameworks. We have evaluated the performance on two different hardware platforms that represent different target market segments: high-end platforms for scientific computing, using an Intel Xeon Platinum 8259CL server with 48 cores, and also an NVIDIA Tesla V100GPU,bothrunningonAmazonWebServer(AWS)Cloud;and on a consumer-oriented platform, using an Intel Core i9 9900k CPU and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 TI GPU. Performance results were compared and analyzed in detail. We show that excellent performance and scalability can be obtained in both platforms, and we extract some important issues that imply a performance degradation for them. We also found that current multicore CPUs with large core numbers can bring a performance very near to that of GPUs, and even identical in some cases.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de España (MINECO), and the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) of Spain, cofinanced by FEDER funds (EU) TIN2017-89842

El embalse de Biscarrués: aproximación a través de la legislación sectorial aplicable

El embalse de Biscarrués ha sido un asunto controvertido desde sus inicios. Se trata de un proyecto largamente demandado por los regantes de la zona de Monegros, que se verían beneficiados por su construcción, pero a la vez existe una gran oposición entre los habitantes de la zona en la que se proyecta. Al tratarse de una obra de grandes dimensiones, con un impacto importante sobre el medio ambiente, el desarrollo del proyecto se ve condicionado por diversa legislación, a la que debe adaptarse. El trabajo pretende realizar una aproximación a este proyecto a través de cuatro perspectivas que se corresponden con legislación aplicable al mismo: aguas, medio ambiente, ordenación del territorio y urbanismo. Los aspectos en los que se incide especialmente son el carácter de interés general de la obra, además de las consecuencias que ello conlleva para una obra pública, y el incumplimiento de los objetivos ambientales impuestos por la Directiva Marco del Agua para las masas de agua afectadas, en relación con lo dispuesto por las sentencias de la Audiencia Nacional a este respecto. <br /

Consumption of meat in relation to physical functioning in the Seniors-ENRICA cohort

Background: Meat is an important source of high-quality protein and vitamin B but also has a relatively high content of saturated and trans fatty acids. Although protein and vitamin B intake seems to protect people from functional limitations, little is known about the effect of habitual meat consumption on physical function. The objective of this study was to examine the prospective association between the intake of meat (processed meat, red meat, and poultry) and physical function impairment in older adults. Methods: Data were collected for 2982 participants in the Seniors-ENRICA cohort, who were aged ≥60 years and free of physical function impairment. In 2008-2010, their habitual diet was assessed through a validated computer-assisted face-to-face diet history. Study participants were followed up through 2015 to assess self-reported incident impairment in agility, mobility, and performance-based lower-extremity function. Results: Over a median follow-up of 5.2 years, we identified 625 participants with impaired agility, 455 with impaired mobility, and 446 with impaired lower-extremity function. After adjustment for potential confounders, processed meat intake was associated with a higher risk of impaired agility (hazard ratio [HR] for highest vs. lowest tertile: 1.33; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.08-1.64; p trend = 0.01) and of impaired lower-extremity function (HR for highest vs. lowest tertile: 1.31; 95% CI: 1.02-1.68; p trend = 0.04). No significant associations were found for red meat and poultry. Replacing one serving per day of processed meat with one serving per day of red meat, poultry, or with other important protein sources (fish, legumes, dairy, and nuts) was associated with lower risk of impaired agility and lower-extremity function. Conclusions: A higher consumption of processed meat was associated with a higher risk of impairment in agility and lower-extremity function. Replacing processed meat by other protein sources may slow the decline in physical functioning in older adultsThis work was supported by grants from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, State Secretary of R+D+I of Spain and FEDER/FSE (FIS 13/0288, 16/609 and 16/1512), and the European Union: FP7-HEALTH-2012-Proposal No: 305483-2, "Utility of omic-based biomarkers in characterizing older individuals at risk for frailty, its progression to disability and general consequences to health and wellbeing - The FRAILOMIC Initiative"; EU H2020- Project ID: 635316, " Ageing Trajectories of Health: Longitudinal Opportunities and Synergies- The ATHLOS project"; and the JPI HDHL: "Salivary Markers of Diet and Health- The SALAMANDER project"