Testing of stair climbing point-of-choice prompts in Barcelona at an outdoor set of stairs and scalators on the Montjuïc site

Regular stair climbing has well-documented health dividends, such as increased fitness and strength, weight loss and reduced body fat, improved lipid profiles and reduced risk of osteoporosis. The general absence of barriers to participation makes stair climbing an ideal physical activity (PA) for health promotion. Studies in the US and the UK have consistently shown that interventions to increase the accumulation of lifestyle PA by climbing stairs rather than using the escalators are effective. However, there are no previous in Catalonia. This project tested one message for their ability to prompt travelers on the Montjuïc site to choose the stairs rather than the escalator when climbing up the Monjuïc hill. One standard message, " Take the stairs! 7 minutes of stair climbing a day protects your heart" provided a comparison with previous research done in the UK. Translated into Catalan and Spanish, it was presented on a poster positioned at the point of choice between the stairs and the escalator. The study used a quasi-experimental, interrupted time series design. Travelers, during several and specific hours on two days of the week, were coded for stair or escalator use, gender, age, ethnic status, presence of accompanying children or bags by one observer. Overall, the intervention resulted in a 81% increase in stair climbing. In the follow-up period without messages, stair climbing dropped out to baseline levels. This preliminary study showed a significant effect on stair use. However, caution is needed since results are based on a small sample and, only a low percentage of the sample took the stairs at baseline or the intervention phase . Future research on stair use in Catalonia should focus on using bigger samples, different sites (metro stations, airports, shopping centers, etc) , different messages and techniques to promote stair climbing.

Material Flow Accounting in Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru (1980-2000)

In this paper we compare the resource flows of Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru between 1980 and 2000. In this time span, the domestic extraction of materials increased in the four countries, mainly due to the mining sector in Chile and Peru, biomass and oil in Ecuador and construction minerals in Mexico. Imports and exports increased too, due to the increasing integration in the international markets, prompted by the liberalization policies undertaken by the four countries between the late 1970s and the late 1990s. The four countries had a negative physical trade balance for most of the period analyzed, meaning that their exports exceeded their imports in terms of weight. However, the increase of imports reduced the physical deficit in Chile, Mexico and Peru. Ecuador’s physical deficit was the highest and did not decrease in the period analyzed. Also, a diversification of exports away from bulk commodities could be observed in Chile and Mexico, and to a lesser extent in Peru, whereas in Ecuador the export sector remained mainly based on oil and biomass. More research is needed to explore the environmental effects of this phenomenon. Also, the indirect flows associated to the direct physical flows deserve to be subject to further analysis.

Caracterització de l'avifauna de la conca del riu Quiroz: identificació de les zones amb potencial aviturístic i d'interès per a la conservació

La conca del riu Quiroz, al nord del Perú, està influenciada per dues zones d’endemisme d’aus i conté quatre àrees importants per a la conservació d’aus. Malgrat això, la informació sobre l’avifauna present a la conca és poc coneguda ja que no s’ha realitzat, fins al moment, cap estudi avifaunístic del global de la conca. En aquest estudi s’han mostrejat nou zones de la conca. A cadascuna s’ha valorat el potencial per al desenvolupament de l’aviturisme i la seva importància per a la conservació de les aus. A més, s’ha calculat un índex que permet valorar l’aviturisme i la conservació conjuntament. Els mostrejos realitzats a la conca demostren la seva riquesa avifaunística doncs, en una superfície mostrejada de 684ha, s’hi han reportat 151 espècies de les quals 34 són endèmiques i 7 estan catalogades com a amenaçades. Al llarg de la conca s’han identificat tres zones amb una importància ornitològica per damunt de la resta. Suyo és la zona de la conca amb un potencial aviturístic més elevat. ChinChin, el lloc amb més importància i possibilitats de dur a terme actuacions encaminades a la conservació. Yanta, destaca en ambdós sentits sent el desenvolupament de l’aviturisme la millor alternativa per garantir la conservació de la zona i, en especial, la seva diversitat avifaunistica.

Neither Private nor Public: The Effects of Communal Provision of Water on Child Health in Peru

The literature on local services has focused on the effects of privatization and, if anything, has compared the effects of private and mixed public-private systems versus public provision. However, alternative forms of provision such as cooperatives, which can be very prevalent in many developing countries, have been completely ignored. In this paper, we investigate the effects of communal water provison (Comités Vecinales and Juntas Administrativas de Servicios de Saneamiento) on child health in Peru. Using detailed survey data at the household- and child-level for the years 2006-2010, we exploit the cross-section variability to assess the differential impact of this form of provision. Despite controlling for a wide range of household and local characteristics, the municipalities served by communal organizations are more likely to have poorer health indicators, what would result in a downward bias on the absolute magnitude of the effect of cooperatives. We rely on an instrumental variable strategy to deal with this potential endogeneity problem, and use the personnel resources and the administrative urban/rural classi fication of the municipalities as instruments for the provision type. The results show a negative and signi cant effect of comunal water provision on diarrhea among under- five year old children. Keywords: water utilities, cooperatives, child health, regulation, Peru. JEL Classi fication Numbers: L33; L50; L95

Anàlisi i redisseny del site web de CC.OO del Grup Banc Sabadell

El projecte comporta l'anàlisi i la creació d'una nova versió del lloc web de la secció sindical de Comissions Obreres (CCOO) del Grup Banc Sabadell partint d'un disseny centrat en l'usuari.

Anàlisi del Cicle de Vida (ACV) del Monoestearat de Glicerina a CRODA Ibérica, S.A. – Mevisa Site

L’estudi de l’Anàlisi del Cicle de Vida (ACV) ha estat realitzat a l’empresa CRODA Ibèrica S.A - Mevisa Site, en concret a la línia productiva on s’hi fabrica el monoestearat de glicerina utilitzant una eina informàtica comercial denominada SIMAPRO que analitza i compara els aspectes mediambientals d’un producte d’una manera sistemàtica i consistent seguint les recomanacions de les normes ISO 14040

Anàlisi i millora dels processos online i eliminació de les barreres d'accessibilitat i usabilitat del site d'una entitat financera

Aquest projecte se centrarà en l'anàlisi i millora dels processos online i l'eliminació de les barreres d'accessibilitat i usabilitat del site d'una entitat financera. Per al compliment d'aquest objectiu ens fixarem en el formulari de contractació d'una hipoteca.

Arqueología de la producción agrícola. Aplicación de técnicas de análisis estadístico y geocomputacional a un caso de estudio del IV-II milenio ANE en la Cuenca del Río Grande (Perú)

Muchas investigaciones arqueobotánicas, desde un enfoque cualitativo-descriptivo, limitan el propio campo de estudio a los análisis de presencia/ausencia y/o de frecuencia de taxones a partir de su recuento en los conjuntos vegetales. De esa manera, los datos proporcionados resultan ser inconcluyentes y no fiables para la reconstrucción del paleoambiente, la determinación de la dieta alimenticia y de la práctica económica realizada (recolección VS agricultura), y totalmente insuficientes para determinar los cambios históricos ocurridos en los procesos productivos. Por lo que concierne el Perú, desde los primeros estudios con referencia a restos vegetales recuperados en yacimientos arqueológicos, principalmente de la costa, se documenta el importante papel que han desarrollado las especies vegetales en la vida de las comunidades pre-hispánicas. No obstante la excepcional abundancia y óptima preservación de este tipo de material (botánico) en muchos de los yacimientos arqueológicos de esta región, gracias a las extremas condiciones climáticas y ambientales sobre todo de sus áridas zonas costeras, los estudios arqueobotánicos desarrollados hasta el momento son muy escasos y las limitaciones análiticas que presentan en su mayoría reflejan la poca importancia dada a las investigaciones arqueobotánicas. En el presente trabajo desarrollamos y aplicamos una metodología analítica de tipo cuantitativa para el estudio de los macrorestos vegetales procedentes de un yacimiento de la Costa sur del Perú. Con ello pretendemos obtener datos representativos y objetivos de los conjuntos analizados, cuyo procesado lleve a una exhaustiva y correcta interpretación de la información.

Desenvolupament d'un web site mitjançant un Gestor de Continguts

Crear, dissenyar, implementar i administrar una pàgina web d'una empresa real, utilitzant i aprofintant al màxim les prestacions i funcionalitats que ofereix el gestor de continguts.

Electronic couplings and on-site energies for hole transfer in DNA: systematic quantum mechanical/molecular dynamic study

The electron hole transfer (HT) properties of DNA are substantially affected by thermal fluctuations of the π stack structure. Depending on the mutual position of neighboring nucleobases, electronic coupling V may change by several orders of magnitude. In the present paper, we report the results of systematic QM/molecular dynamic (MD) calculations of the electronic couplings and on-site energies for the hole transfer. Based on 15 ns MD trajectories for several DNA oligomers, we calculate the average coupling squares 〈 V2 〉 and the energies of basepair triplets X G+ Y and X A+ Y, where X, Y=G, A, T, and C. For each of the 32 systems, 15 000 conformations separated by 1 ps are considered. The three-state generalized Mulliken-Hush method is used to derive electronic couplings for HT between neighboring basepairs. The adiabatic energies and dipole moment matrix elements are computed within the INDO/S method. We compare the rms values of V with the couplings estimated for the idealized B -DNA structure and show that in several important cases the couplings calculated for the idealized B -DNA structure are considerably underestimated. The rms values for intrastrand couplings G-G, A-A, G-A, and A-G are found to be similar, ∼0.07 eV, while the interstrand couplings are quite different. The energies of hole states G+ and A+ in the stack depend on the nature of the neighboring pairs. The X G+ Y are by 0.5 eV more stable than X A+ Y. The thermal fluctuations of the DNA structure facilitate the HT process from guanine to adenine. The tabulated couplings and on-site energies can be used as reference parameters in theoretical and computational studies of HT processes in DNA

Occupancy of a single site by many random walkers

We consider an infinite number of noninteracting lattice random walkers with the goal of determining statistical properties of the time, out of a total time T, that a single site has been occupied by n random walkers. Initially the random walkers are assumed uniformly distributed on the lattice except for the target site at the origin, which is unoccupied. The random-walk model is taken to be a continuous-time random walk and the pausing-time density at the target site is allowed to differ from the pausing-time density at other sites. We calculate the dependence of the mean time of occupancy by n random walkers as a function of n and the observation time T. We also find the variance for the cumulative time during which the site is unoccupied. The large-T behavior of the variance differs according as the random walk is transient or recurrent. It is shown that the variance is proportional to T at large T in three or more dimensions, it is proportional to T3/2 in one dimension and to TlnT in two dimensions.

Variational localized-site cluster expansions. X. Dimerization in linear Heisenberg chains

Ground-state instability to bond alternation in long linear chains is considered from the point of view of valence-bond (VB) theory. This instability is viewed as the consequence of a long-range order (LRO) which is expected if the ground state is reasonably described in terms of the Kekulé states (with nearest-neighbor singlet pairing). It is argued that the bond alternation and associated LRO predicted by this simple, VB picture is retained for certain linear Heisenberg models; many-body VB calculations on spin s=1 / 2 and s=1 chains are carried out in a test of this argument.

dKDM5/LID regulates H3K4me3 dynamics at the transcription-start site (TSS) of actively transcribed developmental genes

H3K4me3 is a histone modification that accumulates at the transcription-start site (TSS) of active genes and is known to be important for transcription activation. The way in which H3K4me3 is regulated at TSS and the actual molecular basis of its contribution to transcription remain largely unanswered. To address these questions, we have analyzed the contribution of dKDM5/LID, the main H3K4me3 demethylase in Drosophila, to the regulation of the pattern of H3K4me3. ChIP-seq results show that, at developmental genes, dKDM5/LID localizes at TSS and regulates H3K4me3. dKDM5/LID target genes are highly transcribed and enriched in active RNApol II and H3K36me3, suggesting a positive contribution to transcription. Expression-profiling show that, though weakly, dKDM5/LID target genes are significantly downregulated upon dKDM5/LID depletion. Furthermore, dKDM5/LID depletion results in decreased RNApol II occupancy, particularly by the promoter-proximal Pol lloser5 form. Our results also show that ASH2, an evolutionarily conserved factor that locates at TSS and is required for H3K4me3, binds and positively regulates dKDM5/LID target genes. However, dKDM5/LID and ASH2 do not bind simultaneously and recognize different chromatin states, enriched in H3K4me3 and not, respectively. These results indicate that, at developmental genes, dKDM5/LID and ASH2 coordinately regulate H3K4me3 at TSS and that this dynamic regulation contributes to transcription.