The Economic Impacts Of Climate Change On The Chilean Agricultural Sector

The agricultural sector could be one of the most vulnerable economic sectors to the impacts of climate change in the coming decades. Climate change impacts are related to changes in the growth period, extreme weather events, and changes in temperature and recipitation patterns, among others. All of these impacts may have significant consequences on agricultural production(Bates, et al.2008. A main issue regarding climate change impacts is related to the uncertainty associated with their occurrence. Climate change impacts can bestimated with simulation models based on several assumptions, among which the future patterns of emissions of greenhouse g asses are quite likely the most relevant, driving the development of future scenarios, i.e. plausible visions of how the future may unfold. Those scenarios are developed as storylines associated with different assumptions about climate and socioeconomic conditions and emissions, with reference figures, such as demographic projections, average global temperatures, etc.(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2000). Within this context, climate change impact assessment is forced to consider multiple and interconnected sources of uncertainty in order to produce valuable information for policymakers.

Impact of ADRB3 SNP on abdominal fat in overweight and obese women

Ponencia sobre el efecto de un polimorfismo del gen ADRB3 sobre masa grasa en mujeres con sobrepeso y obesidad.

Gender differences of the spanish adult population in barriers to active living

Social research on the needs, barriers and innovations in sport and physical activities to adult women in Spain

Contribución al conocimiento de los primeros geotécnicos del siglo XX

Leyendo distintos artículos en la Revista de Obras Públicas (Jiménez Salas, 1945) uno recuerda a las grandes figuras como Coulomb (1773), Poncelet (1840), Rankine (1856), Culmann (1866), Mohr (1871), Boussinesq (1876) y otros muchos, que construyeron la base de un conocimiento que poco a poco irían facilitando la complicada tarea que suponía la construcción. Pero sus avances eran aproximaciones que presentaban notables diferencias frente al comportamiento de la naturaleza. Esas discrepancias con la naturaleza llegó un momento que se hicieron demasiado patentes. Importantes asientos en la construcción de los modernos edificios, rotura de presas de materiales sueltos y grandes corrimientos de tierras, por ejemplo durante la construcción del canal de Panamá, llevaron a la Sociedad Americana de Ingenieros Civiles (ASCE) a crear un comité que analizase las prácticas de la construcción de la época. Hechos similares se producían en Europa, por ejemplo en desmontes para ferrocarriles, que en el caso de Suecia supusieron unas cuantiosas perdidas materiales y humanas. El ingeniero austriaco-americano Karl Terzaghi (1883) había podido comprobar, en su práctica profesional, la carencia de conocimientos para afrontar muchos de los retos que la naturaleza ofrecía. Inicialmente buscó la respuesta en la geología pero encontró que ésta carecía de la definición necesaria para la práctica de la ingeniería, por lo que se lanzó a una denodada tarea investigadora basada en el método experimental. Comenzó en 1917 con escasos medios, pero pronto llegó a desarrollar algunos ensayos que le permitieron establecer los primeros conceptos de una nueva ciencia, la Mecánica de Suelos. Ciencia que ve la luz en 1925 con la publicación de su libro Erdbaumechanik auf bodenphysikalischer Grundlage. Rápidamente otras figuras empezaron a hacer sus contribuciones científicas y de divulgación, como es el caso del ingeniero austriaco-americano Arthur Casagrande (1902), cuya iniciativa de organizar el primer Congreso Internacional de Mecánica de Suelos e Ingeniería de Cimentaciones proporcionó el altavoz que necesitaba esa nueva ciencia para su difusión. Al mismo tiempo, más figuras internacionales se fueron uniendo a este período de grandes avances e innovadores puntos de vista. Figuras como Alec Skempton (1914) en el Reino Unido, Ralph Peck (1912) en los Estados Unidos o Laurits Bjerrum (1918) en Noruega sobresalieron entre los grandes de la época. Esta tesis investiga las vidas de estos geotécnicos, artífices de múltiples avances científicos de la nueva ciencia denominada Mecánica de Suelos. Todas estas grandes figuras de la geotecnia fueron presidentes, en distintos periodos, de la Sociedad Internacional de Mecánica de Suelos e Ingeniería de Cimentaciones. Se deja constancia de ello en las biografías que han sido elaboradas a partir de fuentes de variada procedencia y de los datos cruzados encontrados sobre estos extraordinarios geotécnicos. Así, las biografías de Terzaghi, Casagrande, Skempton, Peck y Bjerrum contribuyen no solo a su conocimiento individual sino que constituyen conjuntamente un punto de vista privilegiado para la comprensión de los acontecimientos vividos por la Mecánica de Suelos en el segundo tercio del siglo XX, extendiéndose en algunos casos hasta los albores del siglo XXI. Las aportaciones científicas de estos geotécnicos encuentran también su lugar en la parte técnica de esta tesis, en la que sus contribuciones individuales iniciales que configuran los distintos capítulos conservan sus puntos de vista originales, lo que permite tener una visión de los principios de la Mecánica de Suelos desde su mismo origen. On reading several articles in the journal, Revista de Obras Públicas (Jiménez Salas, 1945), one recalls such leading figures as Coulomb (1773), Poncelet (1840), Rankine (1856), Culmann (1866), Mohr (1871) and Boussinesq (1876) among many others, who created the basis of scientific knowledge that would make the complicated task of construction progressively easier. However, their advances were approximations which suffered considerable discrepancies when faced with the behaviour of the forces of nature. There came a time when such discrepancies became all too evident. Substantial soil settlements when constructing modern buildings, embankment dam failures and grave landslides, during the construction of the Panama Canal for example, led the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) to form a committee in order to analyse construction practices of the time. Similar incidents had taken place in Europe, for example with railway slides, which in the case of Sweden, had resulted in heavy losses in both materials and human lives. During the practice of his career, the Austrian-American engineer Karl Terzaghi (1883) had encountered the many challenges posed by the forces of nature and the lack of knowledge at his disposal with which to overcome them. Terzaghi first sought a solution in geology only to discover that this lacked the necessary accuracy for the practice of engineering. He therefore threw himself into tireless research based on the experimental method. He began in 1917 on limited means but soon managed to develop several tests, which would allow him to establish the basic fundamentals of a new science; Soil Mechanics, a science which first saw the light of day on the publication of Terzaghi’s book, Erdbaumechanik auf bodenphysikalischer Grundlage. Other figures were quick to make their own scientific contributions. Such was the case of Austrian-American engineer, Arthur Casagrande (1902), whose initiative to organize the first International Congress of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering provided the springboard that this science needed. At the same time, other international figures were becoming involved in this period of great advances and innovative concepts. Figures including the likes of Alec Skempton (1914) in the United Kingdom, Ralph Peck (1912) in the United States, and Laurits Bjerrum (1918) in Norway stood out amongst the greatest of their time. This thesis investigates the lives of these geotechnical engineers to whom we are indebted for a great many scientific advances in this new science known as Soil Mechanics. Moreover, each of these eminent figures held the presidency of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, record of which can be found in their biographies, drawn from diverse sources, and by crosschecking and referencing all the available information on these extraordinary geotechnical engineers. Thus, the biographies of Terzaghi, Casagrande, Skempton, Peck and Bjerrum not only serve to provide knowledge on the individual, but moreover, as a collective, they present us with an exceptional insight into the important developments which took place in Soil Mechanics in the second third of the 20th century, and indeed, in some cases, up to the dawn of the 21st. The scientific contributions of these geotechnical engineers also find their place in the technical part of this thesis in which the initial individual contributions which make up several chapters retain their original approaches allowing us a view of the principles of Soil Mechanics from its very beginnings.

Some examples of the simultaneous use of closed-form and numerical solutions in shell structural analysis

The computational advantages of the use of different approaches -numerical and analytical ones- to the analysis of different parts of the same shell structure are discussed. Examples of large size problems that can be reduced to those more suitable to be handled by a personal related axisyrometric finite elements, local unaxisymmetric shells, geometric quasi-regular shells, infinite elements and homogenization techniques are described

Molecular phylogeny analysis of fiddler crabs: test of the hypothesis of increasing behavioral complexity in evolution.

The current phylogenetic hypothesis for the evolution and biogeography of fiddler crabs relies on the assumption that complex behavioral traits are assumed to also be evolutionary derived. Indo-west Pacific fiddler crabs have simpler reproductive social behavior and are more marine and were thought to be ancestral to the more behaviorally complex and more terrestrial American species. It was also hypothesized that the evolution of more complex social and reproductive behavior was associated with the colonization of the higher intertidal zones. Our phylogenetic analysis, based upon a set of independent molecular characters, however, demonstrates how widely entrenched ideas about evolution and biogeography led to a reasonable, but apparently incorrect, conclusion about the evolutionary trends within this pantropical group of crustaceans. Species bearing the set of "derived traits" are phylogenetically ancestral, suggesting an alternative evolutionary scenario: the evolution of reproductive behavioral complexity in fiddler crabs may have arisen multiple times during their evolution. The evolution of behavioral complexity may have arisen by coopting of a series of other adaptations for high intertidal living and antipredator escape. A calibration of rates of molecular evolution from populations on either side of the Isthmus of Panama suggest a sequence divergence rate for 16S rRNA of 0.9% per million years. The divergence between the ancestral clade and derived forms is estimated to be approximately 22 million years ago, whereas the divergence between the American and Indo-west Pacific is estimated to be approximately 17 million years ago.

Removal of endocrine disrupting compounds from wastewater: a comparison between a conventional activated sludge with tertiary treatment and membrane bioreactors

Póster presentado en 19th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering, Prague, Czech Republic August 28th-September 1st, 2010.

Reduction of haloacetonitriles and haloacetones in natural waters using ceramic nanofiltration membranes

Póster presentado en 19th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering, Prague, Czech Republic August 28th-September 1st, 2010.

Thermogravimetric analysis of the pyrolysis of several materials used in the preparation of commercial cigarettes

Comunicación presentada en forma de póster en el "12th Mediterranean Congress of Chemical Engineering", Barcelona (Spain), November 15-18, 2011

Catalytic effect of MCM-41 in the pyrolysis of tobacco and several substances used as additives in the preparation of commercial cigarettes

Comunicación presentada en forma de póster en el "12th Mediterranean Congress of Chemical Engineering", Barcelona (Spain), November 15-18, 2011.

The location of the Spanish technological centers

Paper submitted to the 42nd Congress of ERSA, Dortmund, August 27th–31st 2002.

Identification of the local productive systems in Spain: a new approach

Paper submitted to the 44th European Congress of the European Regional Science Association, Porto, 25-29 August 2004.

Identification of technological districts: the case of Spain

Paper submitted to the 51st European Congress of the Regional Science Association International, 37th Spanish Regional Science Association Conference, Barcelona, August 30-September 3, 2011.

Mapping Binary Liquid-Vapor or Liquid-Liquid-Vapor Equilibria Regions, including the Different Azeotropic Behaviours, as a Function of the NRTL Binary Parameters

13th Mediterranean Congress of Chemical Engineering (Sociedad Española de Química Industrial e Ingeniería Química, Fira Barcelona, Expoquimia), Barcelona, September 30-October 3, 2014

The relevance of harmonising the technical level of social housing with the urban level of the neighbourhood through the example of the 500 dwellings in Albacete

The Architecture and Household Trade Union built nearly 2,000 subsidized dwellings in Albacete from 1941 to 1971. It was the responsible entity from the end of the Civil War until the beginning of Democracy of the social policy programs in Spain. Later on, and together with the National Housing Institute, were responsible for the construction activity. Its limited budget, scarcity of technical and human resources and an urgent need for new housing developments, constituted the basis for producing a vast housing market of low construction qualities. However, thanks to the true architectonic expertise of some of the professionals, some of the developments were designed with a clear urban strategy and in direct relation with the city, which characterizes them to be studied and conserved. This is the case for the selected development for the analysis, the urban complex of the 500 dwellings in Albacete, the Hermanos Falcó Neighborhood. Designed and built between 1963, Alfonso Crespo and Adolfo Gil architects, and 1977 second reformed project by the architect Fernando Rodríguez. It is characterized by its layout on the territory, its controlled relation with the city and its different types of open blocks. Above all, its spatial and human scale strengths, directly related to the European post-war proposals, have to be emphasized; although its technical deficiencies affect the interior quality of the houses. This paper examines its virtues and failures and proposes, using current tools, its renovation. This proposal main aims are to extend its lifetime and develop the particular and urban sustainability levels.