Reverse logistics practices for recovering mobile phones in Spain

The main objective of this article is to characterize the reverse logistics system for mobile phones in Spain. The study includes the characterization of the different actors involved in the reverse logistics system and the description of the most common logistics practices in the sector. We will also opose alternative practices for managing this complex reverse logistics system and finally, we analyse the challenges of the current reverse logistics model. Some alternatives for the current model are location of reception points for end-of-use mobiles, the need to legislate the secondhand mobile phone market, and the location of the necessary recycling centres according to current legislation.

Reverse logistics systems for waste generated throughout vehicles life-cycle

Waste produced during the service life of automobiles has received much less attention than end-of-life vehicles themselves. In this paper, we deal with the set up of a reverse logistics system for the collection and treatment of use-phase residues. First, the type of waste arising during vehicles? service life is characterized. Data were collected in collaboration with SIGRAUTO, the product stewardship organization in charge of vehicles? recovery in Spain. Next, three organizational models are proposed. The three alternatives are benchmarked and assessed from a double organizational and operational perspective for the particular case of the Madrid region in Spain

Distinct and conserved transcriptomic changes during nematode-induced giant cell development in tomato compared with Arabidopsis: a functional role for gene repression

Root-knot nematodes (RKNs) induce giant cells (GCs) from root vascular cells inside the galls. Accompanying molecular changes as a function of infection time and across different species, and their functional impact, are still poorly understood. Thus, the transcriptomes of tomato galls and laser capture microdissected (LCM) GCs over the course of parasitism were compared with those of Arabidopsis, and functional analysis of a repressed gene was performed. Microarray hybridization with RNA from galls and LCM GCs, infection-reproduction tests and quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) transcriptional profiles in susceptible and resistant (Mi-1) lines were performed in tomato. Tomato GC-induced genes include some possibly contributing to the epigenetic control of GC identity. GC-repressed genes are conserved between tomato and Arabidopsis, notably those involved in lignin deposition. However, genes related to the regulation of gene expression diverge, suggesting that diverse transcriptional regulators mediate common responses leading to GC formation in different plant species. TPX1, a cell wall peroxidase specifically involved in lignification, was strongly repressed in GCs/galls, but induced in a nearly isogenic Mi-1 resistant line on nematode infection. TPX1 overexpression in susceptible plants hindered nematode reproduction and GC expansion. Time-course and cross-species comparisons of gall and GC transcriptomes provide novel insights pointing to the relevance of gene repression during RKN establishment.

Hybridization Processes: The case of the urban game: Hybrid Hunt: Petrified

The proposal highlights certain design strategies and a case study that can link the material urban space to digital emerging realms. The composite nature of urban spaces ?material/ digital- is understood as an opportunity to reconfigure public urban spaces without high-cost, difficult to apply interventions and, furthermore, to reactivate them by inserting dynamic, interactive and playful conditions that engage people and re-establish their relations to the cities. The structuring of coexisting and interconnected material and digital aspects in public urban spaces is proposed through the implementation of hybridization processes. Hybrid spaces can fascinate and provoke the public and especially younger people to get involved and interact with physical aspects of urban public spaces as well as digital representations or interpretations of those. Digital game?s design in urban public spaces can be comprehended as a tool that allows architects to understand and to configure hybrids of material and digital conceptions and project all in one, as an inseparable totality. Digital technologies have for a long time now intervened in our perception of traditional dipoles such as subject - environment. Architects, especially in the past, have been responsible for material mediations and tangible interfaces that permit subjects to relate to their physical environments in a controlled and regulated manner; but, nowadays, architects are compelled to embody in design, the transition that is happening in all aspects of everyday life, that is, from material to digital realities. In addition, the disjunctive relation of material and digital realms is ceding and architects are now faced with the challenge that supposes the merging of both in a single, all-inclusive reality. The case study is a design project for a game implemented simultaneously in a specific urban space and on the internet. This project developed as the spring semester course New Media in Architecture at the Department of Architecture, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece is situated at the city of Xanthi. Composite cities can use design strategies and technological tools to configure augmented and appealing urban spaces that articulate and connect different realms in a single engaging reality.