891 resultados para Spanish ballads and songs.
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A. Continental slope sediments off Spanish-Sahara and Senegal contain up to 4% organic carbon and up to 0.4% total nitrogen. The highest concentrations were found in sediments from water depths between 1000 and 2000 m. The regional and vertical distribution of organic matter differs significantly. Off Spanish-Sahara the organic matter content of sediment deposited during glacial times (Wuerm, Late Riss) is high whereas sediments deposited during interglacial times (Recent, Eem) are low in organic matter. Opposite distribution was found in sediments off Senegal. The sediments contain 30 to 130 ppm of fixed nitrogen. In most sediments this corresponds to 2-8 % of the total nitrogen. Only in sediments deposited during interglacial times off Spanish-Sahara up to 20 % of the total nitrogen is contained as inorganically bound nitrogen. Positive correlations of the fixed nitrogen concentrations to the amounts of clay, alumina, and potassium suggest that it is primarily fixed to illites. The amino acid nitrogen and hexosamine nitrogen account for 17 to 26 % and 1.3 to 2.4 %, respectively of the total nitrogen content of the sediments. The concentrations vary between 200 and 850 ppm amino acid nitrogen and 20 to 70 ppm hexosamine nitrogen, both parallel the fluctiations of organic matter in the sediment. Fulvic acids, humic acids, and the total organic matter of the sediments may be clearly differentiated from one another and their amino acid and hexosamine contents and their amino acid composition: a) Fulvic acids contain only half as much amino acids as humic acids b) The molar amino acid/hexosamine ratios of the fulvic acids are half those of the humic acids and the total organic matter of the sediment c) The amino acid spectra of fulvic acids are characterized by an enrichment of aspartic acid, alanine, and methionine sulfoxide and a depletion of glycine, valine, isoleucine, leucine, tyrosine, phenylalanine, lysine, and arginine compared to the spectra of the humic acids and those of the total organic matter fraction of the sediment. d) The amino acid spectra of the humic acids and those of the total organic matter fraction of the sediments are about the same with the exception that arginine is clearly enriched in the total organic matter. In general, as indicated by the amino compounds humic acids resemble closer the total organic matter composition than the low molecular fulvic acids do. This supports the general idea that during the course of diagenesis in reducing sediments organic matter stabilizes from a fulvic-like structure to humic-like structure and finally to kerogen. The decomposition rates of single aminio acids differ significantly from one another. Generally amino acids which are preferentially contained in humic acids and the total organic matter fraction show a smaller loss with time than those preferably well documented in case of the basic amino acids lysine and arginine which- although thermally unstable- are the most stable amino acids in the sediments. A favoured incorporation of these compounds into high molecular substances as well as into clay minerals may explain their relatively high "stability" in the sediment. The nitrogen loss from the sediments due to the activity of sulphate-reducing bacteria amounts to 20-40 % of the total organic nitrogen now present. At least 40 % of the organic nitrogen which is liberated by sulphate-reducing bacteria can be explained ny decomposition of amino acids alone. B. Deep-sea sediments from the Central Pacific The deep-seas sediments contain 1 to 2 orders of magnitude less organic matter than the continental slope sediments off NW Africa, i.e. 0.04 to 0.3 % organic carbon. The fixed nitrogen content of the deep-sea sediments ranges from 60 to 270 ppm or from 20 to 45 % of the total nitrogen content. While ammonia is the prevailing inorganic nitrogen compound in anoxic pore waters, nitrate predominates in the oxic environment of the deep-sea sediments. Near the sediment/water interface interstital nitrate concentrations of around 30 µg-at. N/l were recorded. These generally increase with sediment depth by 10 to 15 µg-at. NO3- N/l. This suggests the presence of free oxygen and the activity of nitrifying bacteria in the interstitial waters. The ammonia content of the interstitial water of the oxic deep-sea sediments ranges from 2 to 60 µg-at. N/l and thus is several orders of magnitude less than in anoxic sediments. In contrast to recorded nitrate gradients towards the sediments/water interface, there are no ammonia concentration gradients. However, ammonia concentrations appear to be characteristic for certain regional areas. It is suggested that this regional differentiation is caused by ion exchange reactions involving potassium and ammonium ions rather than by different decomposition rates of organic matter. C. C/N ratios All estimated C/N ratios of surface sediments vary between 3 and 9 in the deep-sea and the continental margin, respectively. Whereas the C/N ratios generally increase with depth in the sediment cores off NW Africa they decrease in the deep-sea cores. The lowest values of around 1.3 were found in the deeper sections of the deep-sea cores, the highest of around 10 in the sediments off NW Africa. The wide range of the C/N ratios as well as their opposite behaviour with increasing sediment depth in both the deep-sea and continental margin sediment cores, can be attributed mainly to the combination of the following three factors: 1. Inorganic and organic substances bound within the latticed of clay minerals tend to decrease the C/N ratios. 2. Organic matter not protected by absorption on the clay minerals tends to increase C/N ratios 3. Diagenetic alteration of organic matter by micro-organisms tends to increase C/N ratios through preferential loss of nitrogen The diagenetic changes of the microbially decomposable organic matter results in both oxic and anoxic environments in a preferential loss of nitrogen and hence in higher C/N ratios of the organic fraction. This holds true for most of the continental margin sediments off NW Africa which contain relatively high amounts of organic matter so that factors 2 and 3 predominate there. The relative low C/N ratios of the sediments deposited during interglacial times off Spanish-Sahara, which are low in organic carbon, show the increasing influence of factor 1 - the nitrogen-rich organic substances bound to clay minerals. In the deep-sea sediments from the Central Pacific this factor completely predominates so that the C/N rations of the sediments approach that of the substance absorbed to clay minerals with decreasing organic matter content. In the deeper core sections the unprotected organic matter has been completely destroyed so that the C/N ratios of the total sediments eventually fall into the same range as those of the pure clay mineral fraction.
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This paper evaluates the water footprint of Spanish olives and olive oil over the period 1997-2008. In particular, it analyses the three colour components of the water footprint: green (rainwater stored in the soil), blue (surface and groundwater) and grey (freshwater required to assimilate load of pollutants). Apparent water productivity and virtual water embedded in olive oil exports have also been studied. Results show more than 99.5% of the water footprint of one liter of bottled olive oil is related to the olive production, whereas less than 0.5% is due to the other components such as bottle, cap and label. Over the studied period, the green water footprint in absolute terms of Spanish olive oil production represents about 72% in rainfed systems and just 12% in irrigated olive orchards. Blue and grey water footprints represent 6% and 10% of the national water footprint, respectively. It is shown that olive production is concentrated in regions with the smallest water footprint per unit of product. However, the increase of groundwater consumption in the main olive producing region (Andalusia), from 98 to 378 Mm3 between 1997 and 2008, has added significant pressure in the upstream Guadalquivir basin. This raises questions about the sustainability of irrigated olive orchards for export from the region. Finally, the virtual water related to olive oil exports illustrate the importance of green water footprint of rainfed olives amounting to about 77% of the total virtual water exports.
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This paper describes a preprocessing module for improving the performance of a Spanish into Spanish Sign Language (Lengua de Signos Espanola: LSE) translation system when dealing with sparse training data. This preprocessing module replaces Spanish words with associated tags. The list with Spanish words (vocabulary) and associated tags used by this module is computed automatically considering those signs that show the highest probability of being the translation of every Spanish word. This automatic tag extraction has been compared to a manual strategy achieving almost the same improvement. In this analysis, several alternatives for dealing with non-relevant words have been studied. Non-relevant words are Spanish words not assigned to any sign. The preprocessing module has been incorporated into two well-known statistical translation architectures: a phrase-based system and a Statistical Finite State Transducer (SFST). This system has been developed for a specific application domain: the renewal of Identity Documents and Driver's License. In order to evaluate the system a parallel corpus made up of 4080 Spanish sentences and their LSE translation has been used. The evaluation results revealed a significant performance improvement when including this preprocessing module. In the phrase-based system, the proposed module has given rise to an increase in BLEU (Bilingual Evaluation Understudy) from 73.8% to 81.0% and an increase in the human evaluation score from 0.64 to 0.83. In the case of SFST, BLEU increased from 70.6% to 78.4% and the human evaluation score from 0.65 to 0.82.
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Nowadays, computer simulators are becoming basic tools for education and training in many engineering fields. In the nuclear industry, the role of simulation for training of operators of nuclear power plants is also recognized of the utmost relevance. As an example, the International Atomic Energy Agency sponsors the development of nuclear reactor simulators for education, and arranges the supply of such simulation programs. Aware of this, in 2008 Gas Natural Fenosa, a Spanish gas and electric utility that owns and operate nuclear power plants and promotes university education in the nuclear technology field, provided the Department of Nuclear Engineering of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid with the Interactive Graphic Simulator (IGS) of “José Cabrera” (Zorita) nuclear power plant, an industrial facility whose commercial operation ceased definitively in April 2006. It is a state-of-the-art full-scope real-time simulator that was used for training and qualification of the operators of the plant control room, as well as to understand and analyses the plant dynamics, and to develop, qualify and validate its emergency operating procedures.
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Patent and trademark offices which run according to principles of new management have an inherent need for dependable forecasting data in planning capacity and service levels. The ability of the Spanish Office of Patents and Trademarks to carry out efficient planning of its resource needs requires the use of methods which allow it to predict the changes in the number of patent and trademark applications at different time horizons. The approach for the prediction of time series of Spanish patents and trademarks applications (1979e2009) was based on the use of different techniques of time series prediction in a short-term horizon. The methods used can be grouped into two specifics areas: regression models of trends and time series models. The results of this study show that it is possible to model the series of patents and trademarks applications with different models, especially ARIMA, with satisfactory model adjustment and relatively low error.
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Today, the building sector alone accounts for 40% of the total energy consumption in the European Union (EU). In most EU member states, about 70–90% of the buildings were constructed at least 20 years ago. Due to this, these buildings have a worse energy efficiency behavior than the new ones that comply with current regulations. As a consequence, acting on the existing building stock is needed, developing special methods on assessment and advice in order to reduce the total energy consumption. This article addresses a procedure allowing the classification and characterization of existing buildings facades. It can help researchers to achieve in-depth knowledge of the facades construction and therefore knowing their thermal behavior. Once knowing that, the most appropriate upgrading strategies can be established with the purpose of reducing the energy demand. Furthermore, the classified facade typologies have been verified, complying with current and future Spanish regulations and according to the results obtained, a series of upgrading strategies based on the opaque part and those in the translucent part, have been proposed. As a conclusion, this procedure helps us to select the most appropriate improvement measures for each type of facade in order to comply with current and future Spanish regulations. This proposed method has been tested in a specific neighborhood of Madrid, in a selected period of time, between 1950 and 1980, but it could be applicable to any other city.
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Sustainability is an adjective used to characterize agriculture according to the degree of fulfillment of goals. Those goals are related to agro-ecological, environmental and socio-economic dimensions. Sustainability is a dynamic and temporal character. In absolute terms there is not an ending value because it changes as its dimensions make it. Spain is one of the main agricultural countries of the European Union both in terms of crop land and value of productions. The object of this study is to present a methodology of sustainability account to be incorporated into national statistical and to assess their performance in the course of the years. For that reason the data sources used have been the statistics of the Department of Agriculture and from others database. We presented a set of indicators of sustainability and its evaluation in a time series of at least 30 years. The trend analysis offers the evolution of the numerical values of the indicators in terms of efficiency, physical units used for a unit of product or its value in euros. The analyzed crops have been: wheat, barley, maize, sunflower, sugar beet, wine grape, olive oil, citrus, melon and tomato. Physical indicators were: land, water, energy, erosion, soil organic matter, and carbon balance; socio-economic indicators were: agricultural final production, prices, income, employment and use of fertilizers. In general, all crops increased their productive efficiency, higher in irrigated than on dry land. Spanish agricultural carbon sequestration capacity has multiplied by five in the last seventy years, as a result of the increase in the productivity of crops, in terms of total biomass and the modification of the soil management techniques. Livestock sector presents data of pork, broilers and laying hen. Those showed an improvement in efficiency and economic indicators. Overall we can say that Spanish agriculture and livestock subsector have a tendency towards sustainability, being its main threats extreme meteorological factors and the instability of todays markets.
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La condición física, o como mejor se la conoce hoy en día el “fitness”, es una variable que está cobrando gran protagonismo, especialmente desde la perspectiva de la salud. La mejora de la calidad de vida que se ha experimentado en los últimos años en las sociedades desarrolladas, conlleva un aumento de la esperanza de vida, lo que hace que cada vez más personas vivan más años. Este rápido crecimiento de la población mayor de 60 años hace que, un grupo poblacional prácticamente olvidado desde el punto de vista de la investigación científica en el campo de la actividad física y del deporte, cobre gran relevancia, con el fin de poder ayudar a alcanzar el dicho “no se trata de aportar años a la vida sino vida a lo años”. La presente memoria de Tesis Doctoral tiene como principal objetivo valorar los niveles de fitness en población mayor española, además de analizar la relación existente entre el fitness, sus condicionantes y otros aspectos de la salud, tales como la composición corporal y el estado cognitivo. Entendemos que para poder establecer futuras políticas de salud pública en relación a la actividad física y el envejecimiento activo es necesario conocer cuáles son los niveles de partida de la población mayor en España y sus condicionantes. El trabajo está basado en los datos del estudio multicéntrico EXERNET (Estudio Multi-céntrico para la Evaluación de los Niveles de Condición Física y su relación con Estilos de Vida Saludables en población mayor española no institucionalizada), así como en los datos de dos estudios, llevados a cabo en población mayor institucionalizada. Se han analizado un total de 3136 mayores de vida independiente, procedentes de 6 comunidades autónomas, y 153 mayores institucionalizados en residencias de la Comunidad de Madrid. Los principales resultados de esta tesis son los siguientes: a) Fueron establecidos los valores de referencia, así como las curvas de percentiles, para cada uno de los test de fitness, de acuerdo a la edad y al sexo, en población mayor española de vida independiente y no institucionalizada. b) Los varones obtuvieron mejores niveles de fitness que las mujeres, excepto en los test de flexibilidad; existe una tendencia a disminuir la condición física en ambos sexos a medida que la edad aumenta. c) Niveles bajos de fitness funcional fueron asociados con un aumento en la percepción de problemas. d) El nivel mínimo de fitness funcional a partir del cual los mayores perciben problemas en sus actividades de la vida diaria (AVD) es similar en ambos sexos. e) Niveles elevados de fitness fueron asociados con un menor riesgo de sufrir obesidad sarcopénica y con una mejor salud percibida en los mayores. f) Las personas mayores con obesidad sarcopénica tienen menor capacidad funcional que las personas mayores sanas. g) Niveles elevados de fuerza fueron asociados con un mejor estado cognitivo siendo el estado cognitivo la variable que más influye en el deterioro de la fuerza, incluso más que el sexo y la edad. ABSTRACT Fitness is a variable that is gaining in prominence, especially from the health perspective. Improvement of life quality that has been experienced in the last few years in developed countries, leads to an expanded life expectancy, increasing the numbers of people living longer. This population consisting of people of over 60 years, an almost forgotten population group from the point of view of scientific research in the field of physical activity and sport, is becoming increasingly important, with the main aim of helping to achieve the saying “do not only add years to life, but also add life to years”. The principal aim of the current thesis was to assess physical fitness levels in Spanish elderly people, of over 65 years, analyzing relationship between physical fitness, its determinants, and other aspects of health such as body composition and cognitive status. In order to establish further public health policies in relation to physical activity and active ageing it is necessary to identify the starting physical fitness levels of the Spanish population and their determinants. The work is based on data from the EXERNET multi-center study ("Multi-center Study for the Evaluation of Fitness levels and their relationship to Healthy Lifestyles in noninstitutionalized Spanish elderly"), and on data from two studies conducted in institutionalized elderly people: a total of 3136 non-institutionalized elderly, from 6 Regions of Spain, and 153 institutionalized elderly in nursing homes of Madrid. The main outcomes of this thesis are: a) sex- and age-specific physical fitness normative values and percentile curves for independent and non-institutionalized Spanish elderly were established. b) Greater physical fitness was present in the elderly men than in women, except for the flexibility test, and a trend toward decreased physical fitness in both sexes as their age increased. c) Lower levels of functional fitness were associated with increased perceived problems. d) The minimum functional fitness level at which older adults perceive problems in their ADLs, is similar for both sexes e) Higher levels of physical fitness were associated with a reduced risk of suffering sarcopenic obesity and better perceived health among the elderly. f) The elderly with sarcopenic obesity have lower physical functioning than healthy counterparts. g) Higher strength values were associated with better cognitive status with cognitive status being the most influencing variable in strength deterioration even more than sex and age.
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Una gestión más eficiente y equitativa del agua a escala de cuenca no se puede centrar exclusivamente en el recurso hídrico en sí, sino también en otras políticas y disciplinas científicas. Existe un consenso creciente de que, además de la consideración de las cambiantes condiciones climáticas, es necesaria una integración de ámbitos de investigación tales como la agronomía, planificación del territorio y ciencias políticas y económicas a fin de satisfacer de manera sostenible las demandas de agua por parte de la sociedad y del medio natural. La Política Agrícola Común (PAC) es el principal motor de cambio en las tendencias de paisajes rurales y sistemas agrícolas, pero el deterioro del medio ambiente es ahora una de las principales preocupaciones. Uno de los cambios más relevantes se ha producido con la expansión e intensificación del olivar en España, principalmente con nuevas zonas de regadío o la conversión de olivares de secano a sistemas en regadío. Por otra parte, el cambio de las condiciones climáticas podría ejercer un papel importante en las tendencias negativas de las aportaciones a los ríos, pero no queda claro el papel que podrían estar jugando los cambios de uso de suelo y cobertura vegetal sobre las tendencias negativas de caudal observadas. Esta tesis tiene como objetivo mejorar el conocimiento de los efectos de la producción agrícola, política agraria y cambios de uso de suelo y cobertura vegetal sobre las condiciones de calidad del agua, respuesta hidrológica y apropiación del agua por parte de la sociedad. En primer lugar, el estudio determina las tendencias existentes de nitratos y sólidos en suspensión en las aguas superficiales de la cuenca del río Guadalquivir durante el periodo de 1998 a 2009. Desde una perspectiva de política agraria, la investigación trata de evaluar mediante un análisis de datos de panel las principales variables, incluyendo la reforma de la PAC de 2003, que están teniendo una influencia en ambos indicadores de calidad. En segundo lugar, la apropiación del agua y el nivel de contaminación por nitratos debido a la producción del aceite de oliva en España se determinan con una evaluación de la huella hídrica (HH), teniendo en cuenta una variabilidad espacial y temporal a largo de las provincias españolas y entre 1997 y 2008. Por último, la tesis analiza los efectos de los cambios de uso de suelo y cobertura vegetal sobre las tendencias negativas observadas en la zona alta del Turia, cabecera de la cuenca del río Júcar, durante el periodo 1973-2008 mediante una modelización ecohidrológica. En la cuenca del Guadalquivir cerca del 20% de las estaciones de monitoreo muestran tendencias significativas, lineales o cuadráticas, para cada indicador de calidad de agua. La mayoría de las tendencias significativas en nitratos están aumentando, y la mayoría de tendencias cuadráticas muestran un patrón en forma de U. Los modelos de regresión de datos de panel muestran que las variables más importantes que empeoran ambos indicadores de calidad del agua son la intensificación de biomasa y las exportaciones de ambos indicadores de calidad procedentes de aguas arriba. En regiones en las que el abandono agrícola y/o desintensificación han tenido lugar han mejorado las condiciones de calidad del agua. Para los nitratos, el desacoplamiento de las subvenciones a la agricultura y la reducción de la cuantía de las subvenciones a tierras de regadío subyacen en la reducción observada de la concentración de nitratos. Las medidas de modernización de regadíos y el establecimiento de zonas vulnerables a nitratos reducen la concentración en subcuencas que muestran una tendencia creciente de nitratos. Sin embargo, el efecto de las exportaciones de nitratos procedente de aguas arriba, la intensificación de la biomasa y los precios de los cultivos presentan un mayor peso, explicando la tendencia creciente observada de nitratos. Para los sólidos en suspensión, no queda de forma evidente si el proceso de desacoplamiento ha influido negativa o positivamente. Sin embargo, los mayores valores de las ayudas agrarias aún ligadas a la producción, en particular en zonas de regadío, conllevan un aumento de las tasas de erosión. Aunque la cuenca del Guadalquivir ha aumentado la producción agrícola y la eficiencia del uso del agua, el problema de las altas tasas de erosión aún no ha sido mitigado adecuadamente. El estudio de la huella hídrica (HH) revela que en 1 L de aceite de oliva español más del 99,5% de la HH está relacionado con la producción de la aceituna, mientras que menos del 0,5% se debe a otros componentes, es decir, a la botella, tapón y etiqueta. Durante el período estudiado, la HH verde en secano y en regadío representa alrededor del 72% y 12%, respectivamente, del total de la HH. Las HHs azul y gris representan 6% y 10%, respectivamente. La producción de aceitunas se concentra en regiones con una HH menor por unidad de producto. La producción de aceite de oliva ha aumentado su productividad del agua durante 1997-2008, incentivado por los crecientes precios del aceite, como también lo ha hecho la cantidad de exportaciones de agua virtual. De hecho, las mayores zonas productoras presentan una eficiencia alta del uso y de productividad del agua, así como un menor potencial de contaminación por nitratos. Pero en estas zonas se ve a la vez reflejado un aumento de presión sobre los recursos hídricos locales. El aumento de extracciones de agua subterránea relacionadas con las exportaciones de aceite de oliva podría añadir una mayor presión a la ya estresada cuenca del Guadalquivir, mostrando la necesidad de equilibrar las fuerzas del mercado con los recursos locales disponibles. Los cambios de uso de suelo y cobertura vegetal juegan un papel importante en el balance del agua de la cuenca alta del Turia, pero no son el principal motor que sustenta la reducción observada de caudal. El aumento de la temperatura es el principal factor que explica las mayores tasas de evapotranspiración y la reducción de caudales. Sin embargo, los cambios de uso de suelo y el cambio climático han tenido un efecto compensatorio en la respuesta hidrológica. Por un lado, el caudal se ha visto afectado negativamente por el aumento de la temperatura, mientras que los cambios de uso de suelo y cobertura vegetal han compensado positivamente con una reducción de las tasas de evapotranspiración, gracias a los procesos de disminución de la densidad de matorral y de degradación forestal. El estudio proporciona una visión que fortalece la interdisciplinariedad entre la planificación hidrológica y territorial, destacando la necesidad de incluir las implicaciones de los cambios de uso de suelo y cobertura vegetal en futuros planes hidrológicos. Estos hallazgos son valiosos para la gestión de la cuenca del río Turia, y el enfoque empleado es útil para la determinación del peso de los cambios de uso de suelo y cobertura vegetal en la respuesta hidrológica en otras regiones. ABSTRACT Achieving a more efficient and equitable water management at catchment scale does not only rely on the water resource itself, but also on other policies and scientific knowledge. There is a growing consensus that, in addition to consideration of changing climate conditions, integration with research areas such as agronomy, land use planning and economics and political science is required to meet sustainably the societal and environmental water demands. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a main driver for trends in rural landscapes and agricultural systems, but environmental deterioration is now a principal concern. One of the most relevant changes has occurred with the expansion and intensification of olive orchards in Spain, taking place mainly with new irrigated areas or with the conversion from rainfed to irrigated systems. Moreover, changing climate conditions might exert a major role on water yield trends, but it remains unclear the role that ongoing land use and land cover changes (LULCC) might have on observed river flow trends. This thesis aims to improve the understanding of the effects of agricultural production, policies and LULCC on water quality conditions, hydrological response and human water appropriation. Firstly, the study determines the existing trends for nitrates and suspended solids in the Guadalquivir river basin’s surface waters (south Spain) during the period from 1998 to 2009. From a policy perspective, the research tries to assess with panel data analysis the main drivers, including the 2003 CAP reform, which are having an influence on both water quality indicators. Secondly, water appropriation and nitrate pollution level originating from the production of olive oil in Spain is determined with a water footprint (WF) assessment, considering a spatial temporal variability across the Spanish provinces and from 1997 to 2008 years. Finally, the thesis analyzes the effects of the LULCC on the observed negative trends over the period 1973-2008 in the Upper Turia basin, headwaters of the Júcar river demarcation (east Spain), with ecohydrological modeling. In the Guadalquivir river basin about 20% of monitoring stations show significant trends, linear or quadratic, for each water quality indicator. Most significant trends of nitrates are augmenting than decreasing, and most significant quadratic terms of both indicators exhibit U-shaped patterns. The panel data models show that the most important drivers that are worsening nitrates and suspended solids in the basin are biomass intensification and exports of both water quality indicators from upland regions. In regions that agricultural abandonment and/or de-intensification have taken place the water quality conditions have improved. For nitrates, the decoupling of agricultural subsidies and the reduction of the amount of subsidies to irrigated land underlie the observed reduction of nitrates concentration. Measures of irrigation modernization and establishment of vulnerable zones to nitrates ameliorate the concentration of nitrates in subbasins showing an increasing trend. However, the effect of nitrates load from upland areas, intensification of biomass and crop prices present a greater weight leading to the final increasing trend in this subbasins group, where annual crops dominate. For suspended solids, there is no clear evidence that decoupling process have influenced negatively or positively. Nevertheless, greater values of subsidies still linked to production, particularly in irrigated regions, lead to increasing erosion rates. Although agricultural production has augmented in the basin and water efficiency in the agricultural sector has improved, the issue of high erosion rates has not yet been properly faced. The water footprint (WF) assessment reveals that for 1 L Spanish olive oil more than 99.5% of the WF is related to the olive fruit production, whereas less than 0.5% is due to other components i.e. bottle, cap and label. Over the studied period, the green WF in rainfed and irrigated systems represents about 72% and 12%, respectively, of the total WF. Blue and grey WFs represent 6% and 10%, respectively. The olive production is concentrated in regions with the smallest WF per unit of product. The olive oil production has increased its apparent water productivity from 1997 to 2008 incentivized by growing trade prices, but also did the amount of virtual water exports. In fact, the largest producing areas present high water use efficiency per product and apparent water productivity as well as less nitrates pollution potential, but this enhances the pressure on the available water resources. Increasing groundwater abstractions related to olive oil exports may add further pressure to the already stressed Guadalquivir basin. This shows the need to balance the market forces with the available local resources. Concerning the effects of LULCC on the Upper Turia basin’s streamflow, LULCC play a significant role on the water balance, but it is not the main driver underpinning the observed reduction on Turia's streamflow. Increasing mean temperature is the main factor supporting larger evapotranspiration rates and streamflow reduction. In fact, LULCC and climate change have had an offsetting effect on the streamflow generation during the study period. While streamflow has been negatively affected by increasing temperature, ongoing LULCC have positively compensated with reduced evapotranspiration rates, thanks to mainly shrubland clearing and forest degradation processes. The research provides insight for strengthening the interdisciplinarity between hydrological and spatial planning, highlighting the need to include the implications of LULCC in future hydrological plans. These findings are valuable for the management of the Turia river basin, as well as a useful approach for the determination of the weight of LULCC on the hydrological response in other regions.
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Spain’s economy recorded a high rate of growth from the mid-1990s onwards. At the same time, the resources allocated to Research and Development (R&D) grew at a much faster pace than in other European Union (EU) countries. Spain’s growth recorded an average rate of 2.93% from the early 1990s to 2004. Over the same period, the average growth in the EU was 0.46%. This circumstance, together with several sound policy decisions implemented between 2004 and 2009, ushered in a “golden age of Spanish biotechnology”. In terms of the national patent licenses issued by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO) between 2004 and 2009, the number in biotechnology grew from 84 to 151. However, the current economic situation in Spain, along with a series of political decisions taken over the past two or three years to cut spending on R&D, predicts a sharp downturn in the performance of Spanish biotechnology. This scenario makes Spain one of the best places to study the successes and failures of the management of science and allows transfer this experience to the other international regions. We need to analyze the influence of political decisions as a major factor with a bearing on the quality of science. Using patents as an indicator of scientific development, this paper analyzes the evolution of the biotechnology sector in Spain and its relationship with scientific policy and the management of R&D.
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In recent years, coinciding with adjustments to the Bologna process, many European universities have attempted to improve their international profile by increasing course offerings in English. According to the Institute of International Education (IIE), Spain has notably increased its English-taught higher education programs, ranking fifth in the list of European countries by number of English-taught Master's programs in 2013. This article presents the goals and preliminary results of an on-going innovative education project (TechEnglish) that aims to promote course offerings in English at the Technical University of Madrid (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, UPM). The UPM is the oldest and largest of all Technical Universities in Spain. It offers graduate and postgraduate programs that cover all the engineering disciplines as well as architecture. Currently, the UPM has no specific bilingual/multilingual program to promote teaching in English, although there is an Educational Model Whitepaper (with a focus on undergraduate degrees) that promotes the development of activities like an International Semester or a unique shared curriculum. The TechEnglish project is an attempt to foster courses taught in English at 7 UPM Technical Schools, including students and 80 faculty members. Four tasks were identified: (1) to design a university wide framework to increase course offerings, (2) to identify administrative difficulties, (3) to increase visibility of courses offered, and (4) to disseminate the results of the project. First, to design a program we analyzed existing programs at other Spanish universities, and other projects and efforts already under way at the UPM. A total of 13 plans were analyzed and classified according to their relation with students (learning), professors (teaching), administration, course offerings, other actors/institutions within the university (e.g., language departments), funds and projects, dissemination activities, mobility plans and quality control. Second, to begin to identify administrative and organizational difficulties in the implementation of teaching in English, we first estimated the current and potential course offerings at the undergraduate level at the UPM using a survey (student, teacher and administrative demand, level of English and willingness to work in English). Third, to make the course offerings more attractive for both Spanish and international students we examined the way the most prestigious universities in Spain and in Europe try to improve the visibility of their academic offerings in English. Finally, to disseminate the results of the project we created a web page and a workspace on the Moodle education platform and prepared conferences and workshops within the UPM. Preliminary results show that increasing course offerings in English is an important step to promote the internationalization of the University. The main difficulties identified at the UPM were related to how to acknowledge/certify the departments, teachers or students involved in English courses, how students should register for the courses, how departments should split and schedule the courses (Spanish and English), and the lack of qualified personnel. A concerted effort could be made to increase the visibility of English-taught programs offered on-line.
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In behavior reminiscent of the responsiveness of human infants to speech, young songbirds innately recognize and prefer to learn the songs of their own species. The acoustic and physiological bases for innate recognition were investigated in fledgling white-crowned sparrows lacking song experience. A behavioral test revealed that the complete conspecific song was not essential for innate recognition: songs composed of single white-crowned sparrow phrases and songs played in reverse elicited vocal responses as strongly as did normal song. In all cases, these responses surpassed those to other species’ songs. Although auditory neurons in the song nucleus HVc and the underlying neostriatum of fledglings did not prefer conspecific song over foreign song, some neurons responded strongly to particular phrase types characteristic of white-crowned sparrows and, thus, could contribute to innate song recognition.
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Abundant research has shown that poverty has negative influences on young child academic and psychosocial development, and unfortunately, disparities in school readiness between low and high income children can be seen as early the first year of life. The largest federal early care and education intervention for these vulnerable children is Early Head Start (EHS). To diminish these disparate child outcomes, EHS seeks to provide community based flexible programming for infants and toddlers and their families. Given how relatively recent these programs have been offered, little is known about the nuances of how EHS impacts infant and toddler language and psychosocial development. Using a framework of Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) this paper had 5 goals: 1) to characterize the associations between domain specific and cumulative risk and child outcomes 2) to validate and explore these risk-outcome associations separately for Children of Hispanic immigrants (COHIs), 3) to explore relationships among family characteristics, multiple environmental factors, and dosage patterns in different EHS program types, 4) to examine the relationship between EHS dosage and child outcomes, and 5) to examine how EHS compliance impacts child internalizing and externalizing behaviors and emerging language abilities. Results of the current study showed that risks were differentially related to child outcomes. Poor maternal mental health was related to child internalizing and externalizing behaviors, but not related to emerging child language skills. Although child language skills were not related to maternal mental health, they were related to economic hardship. Additionally, parent level Spanish use and heritage orientation were associated with positive child outcomes. Results also showed that these relationships differed when COHIs and children with native-born parents were examined separately. Further, unique patterns emerged for EHS program use, for example families who participated in home-based care were less likely to comply with EHS attendance requirements. These findings provide tangible suggestions for EHS stakeholders: namely, the need to develop effective programming that targets engagement for diverse families enrolled in EHS programs.
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The sea level variation (SLVtotal) is the sum of two major contributions: steric and mass-induced. The steric SLVsteric is that resulting from the thermal and salinity changes in a given water column. It only involves volume change, hence has no gravitational effect. The mass-induced SLVmass, on the other hand, arises from adding or subtracting water mass to or from the water column and has direct gravitational signature. We examine the closure of the seasonal SLV budget and estimate the relative importance of the two contributions in the Mediterranean Sea as a function of time. We use ocean altimetry data (from TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason 1, ERS, and ENVISAT missions) to estimate SLVtotal, temperature, and salinity data (from the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean ocean model) to estimate SLVsteric, and time variable gravity data (from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Project, April 2002 to July 2004) to estimate SLVmass. We find that the annual cycle of SLVtotal in the Mediterranean is mainly driven by SLVsteric but moderately offset by SLVmass. The agreement between the seasonal SLVmass estimations from SLVtotal – SLVsteric and from GRACE is quite remarkable; the annual cycle reaches the maximum value in mid-February, almost half a cycle later than SLVtotal or SLVsteric, which peak by mid-October and mid-September, respectively. Thus, when sea level is rising (falling), the Mediterranean Sea is actually losing (gaining) mass. Furthermore, as SLVmass is balanced by vertical (precipitation minus evaporation, P–E) and horizontal (exchange of water with the Atlantic, Black Sea, and river runoff) mass fluxes, we compared it with the P–E determined from meteorological data to estimate the annual cycle of the horizontal flux.
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Reply to comment by L. Fenoglio-Marc et al. on “On the steric and mass-induced contributions to the annual sea level variations in the Mediterranean Sea”.