RUa Reposity University of Alicante
Not a member yet
94013 research outputs found
Sort by
Laboratory tests for the geotechnical characterization of solid construction and demolition waste (CDW). A systematic review
Get PDFLa progresiva demanda de materias primas en la construcción, sumada a una inadecuada gestión de residuos de construcción y demolición (RCD), exponen un desafío urgente para la sostenibilidad ambiental, especialmente para los países en desarrollo. Este trabajo siguió las directrices PRISMA que permitieron incluir doce estudios experimentales que investigaron las propiedades geotécnicas de los RCD como alternativa sostenible para sustituir a los materiales naturales. El objetivo de esta revisión sistemática fue abordar la caracterización geotécnica de residuos sólidos de construcción y demolición (RCD) a través de ensayos de laboratorio. Los resultados obtenidos indican que los RCD cumplen con los requisitos técnicos para ser utilizados como reemplazo de los áridos naturales en pavimentos, en el mejoramiento de suelos, en obras para zonas de bajo tránsito, reconformación morfológica de minas y como elementos estructurales. Esta investigación abarcó un análisis estadístico para establecer intervalos de confianza del 95% y nivel de significancia del 0,05 para los principales parámetros geotécnicos como la máxima densidad seca (1,81-1,90 g/cm3), óptimo contenido de humedad (12,3-13,8%), gravedad específica (2,45-2,61) y ángulo de fricción interna (49,5°-58,7°), que confirman la viabilidad del empleo de los RCD en obras de ingeniería civil. Finalmente, este estudio resalta el potencial de los RCD como materiales en la construcción civil sostenible, contribuyendo a reducir la extracción de recursos naturales y a mitigar los impactos ambientales y sociales asociados a la gestión de residuos. Además, los resultados obtenidos proporcionan una importante referencia para futuras investigaciones y validación de parámetros geotécnicos.The progressive demand for raw materials in construction, coupled with inadequate management of construction and demolition waste (CDW), presents an urgent challenge for environmental sustainability, especially for developing countries. This work followed the PRISMA guidelines that allowed the inclusion of twelve experimental studies that investigated the geotechnical properties of CDW as a sustainable alternative to replace natural materials. The objective of this systematic review was to address the geotechnical characterization of solid construction and demolition waste (CDW) through laboratory tests. The results obtained indicate that CDW meets the technical requirements to be used as a replacement for natural aggregates in pavements, in soil improvement, in works for low traffic areas, morphological reconformation of mines and as structural elements. This research included a statistical analysis to establish 95% confidence intervals and a significance level of 0,05 for the main geotechnical parameters such as maximum dry density (1,81-1,90 g/cm3), optimum moisture content (12,3-13,8%), specific gravity (2,45-2,61) and angle of internal friction (49.5°-58.7°), which confirm the feasibility of using CDW in civil engineering works. Finally, this study highlights the potential of CDW as materials in sustainable civil construction, contributing to reducing the extraction of natural resources and mitigating the environmental and social impacts associated with waste management. Furthermore, the results obtained provide an important reference for future research and validation of geotechnical parameters
The incorporation of social vulnerability into integrative flood risk management
Get PDFExiste un amplio consenso entre la comunidad científica e instituciones internacionales sobre la necesidad de incorporar de manera efectiva la atención a la vulnerabilidad social en la gestión integral del riesgo de desastre por inundación. Este artículo propone un modelo de referencia para orientar a científicos sociales y gestores en el tratamiento de la vulnerabilidad social ante inundaciones, a través de la articulación de sus elementos generativos, capacitivos y experimentativos. La principal contribución de este modelo reside en la superación de los tradicionales análisis descriptivos de las condiciones sociodemográficas de vulnerabilidad. El modelo permite atender a las múltiples dimensiones de la vulnerabilidad a lo largo del ciclo del desastre, desde sus causas profundas hasta la desigual distribución de sus impactos. Esta propuesta ofrece un marco para visibilizar la naturaleza social del desastre y el imprescindible papel de las ciencias sociales en la preparación frente a las consecuencias del cambio climático.There is a broad consensus among the scientific community and international institutions on the need to effectively incorporate social vulnerability into integrative flood risk management. This article proposes a reference model to guide social scientists and risk managers in addressing social vulnerability to floods by articulating its generative, capacitive, and experiential elements. The model’s main contribution lies in moving beyond traditional descriptive analyses of sociodemographic vulnerability conditions. It enables a multidimensional approach to vulnerability throughout the disaster cycle, from its root causes to the unequal distribution of impacts. This framework highlights the inherently social nature of disasters and underscores the essential role of social sciences in preparing for the consequences of climate change.Este trabajo se ha desarrollado en el marco del proyecto PID2021-122500OB-I00, financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades del Gobierno de España / AEI /10.13039/501100011033 / FEDER, UE, y del proyecto CIAICO/2021/173 financiado por la Conselleria de Educación, Cultura, Universidades y Empleo de la Generalitat Valenciana
Recycling Metal, Mobility and Connectivity. An Analysis of Rochelongue Underwater Site Assemblage (seventh–sixth BC) West Languedoc (France)
No full textThis article presents the rationale behind the material culture from Rochelongue underwater site assemblage. This site was located in the 1960s at Cap d’Agde (Languedoc-Rousillon, France) and dated to the last quarter of the seventh–beginning of the sixth century BC. The study is based on the characterisation of the metal finds linked to the so-called “Launacian” phenomenon. The results are applied within the context of mobility, connectivity and cultural interaction, showing metal as the central defining element of these archaeological contexts. The provenance and cultural affiliations of the pieces, determined from chemical and provenance analyses, help, in turn, to determine interactions between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe. In this context, the South of France is a nexus for direct contact sustained over a certain period, probably economic, although never free from other socio-political considerations. Thus, the article opens debate on the underwater site of Rochelongue and its Launacian material culture context, feeding discussion on its chronology, cultural attribution and typological characterisations, as well as reflecting a greater relevance of the coastal and maritime route and its impact on the Iberian Peninsula than previously considered.Dieser Artikel stellt die Gründe für die materielle Kultur der Unterwasserfundstätte Rochelongue dar. Diese Fundstätte wurde in den 1960er Jahren am Cap d’Agde (Languedoc-Rousillon, Frankreich) lokalisiert und auf das letzte Viertel des 7. bis Anfang des 6. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. datiert. Die Studie basiert auf der Charakterisierung der Metallfunde, die mit dem sogenannten „Launacian“-Phänomen in Verbindung stehen. Die Ergebnisse werden im Kontext von Mobilität, Konnektivität und kultureller Interaktion angewandt und zeigen, dass Metall das zentrale bestimmende Element dieser archäologischen Kontexte ist. Die Herkunft und die kulturellen Zugehörigkeiten der Stücke, die anhand chemischer und Herkunftsanalysen ermittelt wurden, helfen wiederum dabei, die Interaktionen zwischen der Iberischen Halbinsel und dem Rest Europas zu bestimmen. In diesem Zusammenhang ist der Süden Frankreichs ein Knotenpunkt für direkten Kontakt, der über einen bestimmten Zeitraum aufrechterhalten wurde, wahrscheinlich wirtschaftlicher Natur, obwohl er nie frei von anderen soziopolitischen Überlegungen war. Der Artikel eröffnet somit eine Debatte über die Unterwasserstätte Rochelongue und ihren Kontext der materiellen Kultur des Launaciens, regt die Diskussion über ihre Chronologie, kulturelle Zuordnung und typologische Charakterisierung an und verdeutlicht eine größere Relevanz der Küsten- und Seeroute und ihrer Auswirkungen auf die Iberische Halbinsel als bisher angenommen.The analytical work for this study was funded by a Re-entry Fellowship awarded Wendy van Duivenvoorde by Flinders University. Enrique Aragon-Nuñez’s doctoral research was made possible by a Cotutele Program Grant from Cadiz University and a Research Scholarship, Research Project Grant and Cotutelle Program Grant from Flinders University. This study has been conducted within the framework of the following projects: Ramón y Cajal (RYC2018-024523-I); AICO/2021/189 Generalitat Valenciana “Construyendo territorios entre el Bronce Final y el Ibérico Antiguo en los extremos de la Comunidad Valenciana” (CONSTRUCTERR)
Bacterioruberin-Rich Carotenoid Extract from Haloferax mediterranei Suppresses Proliferation Inducing Apoptosis and Cell Cycle Arrest in Myeloid Leukaemia Cell Lines
No full textGender and Community-Based Tourism: Theoretical Debates from a Decolonial Perspective
No full textThis paper critiques the Western-centric lens in gender studies, emphasising the need for decolonial, intersectional, and inclusive methodologies in community-based tourism (CBT) research. It argues that universalist narratives often overlook local power structures, gendered labour divisions, and socio-economic inequalities, disregarding localised knowledge and the structural barriers that shape women’s realities in tourism. In the case of rural women, these dominant perspectives fail to address key issues such as the unequal distribution of benefits, the complexities of tourism participation, and the tensions between market demands, social change, and cultural preservation. This paper calls for context-sensitive approaches that amplify women’s voices and lived experiences in CBT. It highlights the urgency of decolonising knowledge, challenging hegemonic epistemologies that homogenise women’s experiences and reinforce Eurocentric gender norms. The study also underscores intersectionality as a crucial tool to expose the overlapping systems of oppression—including ethnicity, class, race, and access to global tourism markets—that deepen gender inequalities in CBT. Without a decolonial and intersectional lens, tourism studies risk reproducing extractivist logics that marginalise local voices and perpetuate inequitable structures. Future research must move beyond Western frameworks, fostering more ethical, sustainable, and socially just approaches to gender studies in tourism
Privacy and Accuracy Implications of Model Complexity and Integration in Heterogeneous Federated Learning
No full textFederated Learning (FL) has been proposed as a privacy-preserving solution for distributed machine learning, particularly in heterogeneous FL settings where clients have varying computational capabilities and thus train models with different complexities compared to the server’s model. However, FL is not without vulnerabilities: recent studies have shown that it is susceptible to membership inference attacks (MIA), which can compromise the privacy of client data. In this paper, we examine the intersection of these two aspects, heterogeneous FL and its privacy vulnerabilities, by focusing on the role of client model integration, the process through which the server integrates parameters from clients’ smaller models into its larger model. To better understand this process, we first propose a taxonomy that categorizes existing heterogeneous FL methods and enables the design of seven novel heterogeneous FL model integration strategies. Using CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, and FEMNIST vision datasets, we evaluate the privacy and accuracy trade-offs of these approaches under three types of MIAs. Our findings reveal significant differences in privacy leakage and performance depending on the integration method. Notably, introducing randomness in the model integration process enhances client privacy while maintaining competitive accuracy for both the clients and the server. This work provides quantitative light on the privacy-accuracy implications client model integration in heterogeneous FL settings, paving the way towards more secure and efficient FL systems.The work of Gergely D. Németh was supported in part by ELLIS Unit Alicante Foundation by European Commission under the Horizon Europe Program under Grant 101120237—ELIAS; in part by the Nominal Grant from the Regional Government of Valencia in Spain (Convenio Singular Signed with Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria de Innovación, Industria, Comercio y Turismo, Dirección General de Innovación); in part by the Banco Sabadell Foundation; in part by European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under ELISE under Grant 951847; and in part by European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for the Project ‘‘Bayesian Models and Algorithms for Fairness and Transparency,’’ funded under European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Program under Grant 851538. The work of Novi Quadrianto was supported in part by ERC Starting Grant for the Project ‘‘Bayesian Models and Algorithms for Fairness and Transparency,’’ funded under European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Program under Grant 851538. The work of Nuria Oliver was supported in part by ELLIS Unit Alicante Foundation by European Commission under the Horizon Europe Program under Grant 101120237—ELIAS; in part by the Nominal Grant from the Regional Government of Valencia in Spain (Convenio Singular Signed with Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria de Innovación, Industria, Comercio y Turismo, Dirección General de Innovación)
Barbie (2023): The Cultural Icon Redefining Female Empowerment
No full textEl artículo examina la película Barbie (Greta Gerwig, 2023), la más taquillera del año, y su relación con las estrategias de marketing y los estereotipos de género. El objetivo es analizar la perpetuación de estereotipos y la adaptación de Mattel a las demandas de igualdad de género mediante rebranding y campañas como “You Can Be Anything”. El estudio utiliza un diseño metodológico mixto, con análisis cualitativo y cuantitativo de la película mediante coocurrencias y datos estadísticos de ventas. El principal hallazgo es que, aunque la película se presenta como un fenómeno de empoderamiento femenino, todavía recurre a estereotipos tradicionales. La investigación revela que el código de empoderamiento femenino es recurrente, aunque el patriarcado sigue presente. La publicidad de la película generó un movimiento rosa global que reforzó la conexión emocional del público con la marca, pero también mostró las tensiones entre viejas y nuevas representaciones de género. La principal conclusión es que Mattel ha logrado reposicionar a Barbie como un icono de empoderamiento, aunque el análisis de contenido revela que la película aún lucha con las representaciones tradicionales de género. Se identifican las claves exitosas de la estrategia de marketing multicanal de Barbie y se aporta un análisis crítico de la gestión equilibrada entre tradición y modernidad en su representación de género.The article examines the movie Barbie (Greta Gerwig, 2023), the highest-grossing film of the year, and its relationship with marketing strategies and gender stereotypes. The objective is to analyze the perpetuation of stereotypes and Mattel’s adaptation to gender equality demands through rebranding and campaigns like “You Can Be Anything”. The study employs a mixed-methods design, using qualitative and quantitative analysis of the film through co-occurrences and sales data statistics. The main finding is that although the movie presents itself as a phenomenon of female empowerment, it still resorts to traditional stereotypes. The research reveals that the code of female empowerment is recurrent, although patriarchy remains present. The movie’s advertising generated a global pink movement that strengthened the audience’s emotional connection with the brand but also highlighted tensions between old and new gender representations. The main conclusion is that Mattel has successfully repositioned Barbie as an empowerment icon, though content analysis reveals that the film still struggles with traditional gender representations. The article’s primary contribution is the identification of Barbie’s successful multichannel marketing strategy and the critical analysis of how this iconic brand attempts to balance tradition and modernity in its gender representation.Instituciones financiadoras: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Cátedra RTVE-UJI “Cultural Audiovisual y Alfabetización Mediática”y Consell de l’Audiovisual de la Comunitat Valenciana. Título del proyecto: Alfabetización mediática en los medios de comunicación públicos. Análisis de estrategias y procesos de colaboración entre medios e instituciones educativas en Europa y en España (AMI-EDUCOM), con código PID2022-13884NB-I00
Evaluation and improvement of Copernicus HR-VPP product for crop phenology monitoring
No full textMonitoring agricultural land with optical remote sensing offers a valuable tool for estimating crop yield and supporting decision-making for food security. Cropland phenology indicators, such as the start of season (SOS), the end of season (EOS), and the number of growing seasons per year, provide essential information for land managers. While established toolboxes like TIMESAT have been extracting phenological metrics from coarse remote sensing data for two decades, agricultural monitoring applications demand continuous time series of high-resolution data, made possible by the European Union’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 since 2015. Recently, the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS) released the pan-European High-Resolution Vegetation Phenology and Productivity (HR-VPP) product suite. We conducted the first comprehensive validation of the analysis-ready SOS and EOS metrics from the VPP dataset of the HR-VPP product over a large set of agricultural fields spanning 10 countries, 14 crop types and 164 growing seasons. Our results demonstrate that the VPP product of the HR-VPP dataset correlates well with the sowing (r2 = 0.75) and harvesting (r2 = 0.56) dates observed in situ. The biases differ between spring (SOS bias: 59 days, EOS bias: 3 days) and winter (SOS bias: 136 days, EOS bias: –44 days) crops, likely due to the suppression of the autumn vegetation signal in the plant phenology index (PPI) by a solar zenith angle-dependent gain factor. We show that other indicators from the HR-VPP Vegetation Indices (VIs) product and re-parameterization of TIMESAT or DATimeS toolboxes are more suitable for winter crop phenology monitoring. This study calls for researchers and practitioners to carefully evaluate the performance of analysis-ready products to ensure their suitability for specific applications, ultimately promoting informed decision-making in agricultural management and food security endeavours.This article/publication is based upon work from COST Actions CA17134 “Optical synergies for spatiotemporal SENsing of Scalable ECOphysiological traits” (SENSECO) and CA22136 “Pan-European Network of Green Deal Agriculture and Forestry Earth Observation Science” (PANGEOS) supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). D.G. and the in situ data of the Bulgarian sites was partially supported by the Research Grant Award No. ДФНП-17-43/26.07.2017 to the project “Assessment of the condition of winter rapeseed crops in Northeastern Bulgaria through satellite and terrestrial data” of the Program for Supporting Young Scientists and PhD Students – 2017 from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. J.V. was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the FLEXINEL project. Grant number: 101086622. K.B. was supported by the Copernicus Global Land Cover and Tropical Forest Mapping and Monitoring Service (LCFM) under Framework Service Contract N°945329. E.T. was supported by the European Union Next-GenerationEU program (PNRR, Agritech, CN00000022). S.B. was partially supported by the Generalitat Valenciana SEJIGENT program (SEJIGENT/2021/001) and European Union NextGenerationEU (ZAMBRANO 21–04). J.S. is a recipient of an FPI fellowship from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (grant: PRE2020-091907)
Inequality and market power in Latin America and the Caribbean
No full textThis study estimates firm-level markups (product market power) and markdowns (labor market power) for formal firms in 16 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries and 28 economically comparable but less unequal countries. Objectives include (1) contrasting market power in LAC firms with peers; (2) evaluating its effect on firm-level labor revenue share; and (3) assessing its influence on the overall labor income share, considering market power’s distribution, labor share and firm size. Findings reveal LAC firms’ average price markup is 87% over marginal costs, and wages are 38% below labor’s marginal revenue product. The firm-level negative link between labor share and market power mainly stems from labor market power, more pronounced in larger firms. This influences the total labor share and income distribution. Yet, LAC’s market power intensity and distribution don’t surpass its peers, nor do they contribute more to inequality.This article was written for the Latin American and Caribbean Inequality Review, funded by the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Inter-American Development Bank, Yale University, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily of the funders. Messina also acknowledges financial support from Project PID2021-124237NBI00 (financed by MCIN/ AEI /10.13039/501100011033/ and by FEDER Una manera de hacer Europa) and from Generalitat Valenciana, Consellería de Innovación, Universidades, Ciencia y Sociedad Digital through project Prometeo CIPROM/2021/068