Our planet Earth, precisely speaking its surface shell, might be considered as a huge multiphase batch biochemical reactor heated by the Sun, whose energy is a unique resource. The Sun ensures our ...earthly life unconditionally; moreover, it compensates the heat losses of land, water, and ice by radiation emitted from the Earth surface to its surrounding space at night. It is evident that in this macroreactor the complex transport phenomena occur in many phases, involving mass, heat, and momentum. Obviously, such a responsive batch system is strongly limited by raw resources of all elements including carbon materials necessary for a good living standard and utilized both in the energy production and for the main industrial chemical processes.
The planet Earth can be considered as a huge multiphase batch biochemical reactor heated by the Sun. Our living space on its surface shell, regarded as a responsive batch system, is strongly limited by raw resources of carbon and all other elements. The exponential trends in population, exploitation of resources, and energy demand will be unsustainable for the future.
The overarching aim of this open access book is to present self-contained theory and algorithms for investigation and prediction of electric demand peaks. A cross-section of popular demand ...forecasting algorithms from statistics, machine learning and mathematics is presented, followed by extreme value theory techniques with examples.In order to achieve carbon targets, good forecasts of peaks are essential. For instance, shifting demand or charging battery depends on correct demand predictions in time. Majority of forecasting algorithms historically were focused on average load prediction. In order to model the peaks, methods from extreme value theory are applied. This allows us to study extremes without making any assumption on the central parts of demand distribution and to predict beyond the range of available data. While applied on individual loads, the techniques described in this book can be extended naturally to substations, or to commercial settings. Extreme value theory techniques presented can be also used across other disciplines, for example for predicting heavy rainfalls, wind speed, solar radiation and extreme weather events. The book is intended for students, academics, engineers and professionals that are interested in short term load prediction, energy data analytics, battery control, demand side response and data science in general.
La enseñanza de las ciencias debe ser abordada con estrategias variadas para conseguir acercarla a más niños yobtener un aprendizaje más profundo. Entre estas estrategias encontramos los Concept ...Cartoons, escasamenteusado en escuelas españolas. Esta investigación comprueba su influencia en la motivación y en los conocimientosconceptuales de niños de tercer curso de Educación Primaria de un colegio público de Albacete, comparada conel método tradicional basado en el libro de texto. Los niños (43), han sido divididos en dos grupos (experimentaly control), y han rellenado dos cuestionarios (motivación y conocimientos) antes y después de la experiencia. Losresultados muestran que no hay diferencias en la motivación de ninguno de los grupos, sin embargo, y aunqueambos grupos puntúan mejor en el cuestionario de conocimientos tras las clases, hay diferencias estadísticamentesignificativas en las puntuaciones obtenidas, en favor de los que aprendieron mediante Concept Cartoons.
RESUMEN El presente estudio tuvo como objetivo identificar los modelos del planeta Tierra en escolares mapuches y no mapuches de procedencia rural. Los participantes fueron 40 escolares distribuidos ...en dos grupos de edad, quienes respondieron a una tarea cognitiva que indaga la representación de la forma del planeta Tierra. En base al grado de acuerdo con la representación científica, cada participante fue categorizado en uno de cuatro modelos del planeta Tierra. El modelo 4, concordante con el conocimiento científico, no fue observado, pues la mayoría de los participantes se concentra en el modelo 3 en el que coexisten conocimientos previos con algunos elementos científicos. En los niños no mapuches se aprecia que el modelo del planeta Tierra se ajusta a los significados científicos a medida que aumenta el conocimiento escolar. Por el contrario, en los niños mapuches no se observa esta tendencia. Se discute el papel de la cultura y la enseñanza en el aprendizaje del modelo científico del planeta. ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to identify planet Earth models in mapuches and non mapuches students of rural origin. The participants were 40 students divided into two age groups who responded to a cognitive task which explores the representation of the shape of the planet Earth. Based on the degree of agreement with the scientific representation, each participant was categorized into one of four models of planet Earth. Model 4, consistent with the scientific knowledge was not observed because the majority of the participants were concentrated in Model 3. In non mapuche children, it is observed that the model of the planet Earth is adjusted to the scientific meaning in accordance with the increase of school knowledge. On the other hand, this trend is not observed in mapuche children. The role of culture and teaching is discussed in the learning of planet scientific model.
Realism without Speculation Blok, Vincent
Studia phaenomenologica,
2017, 2017-00-00, Volume:
17
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
In this article, we evaluate Meillassoux’s criticism of correlationism in general and of Heidegger’s correlationism in particular. Contrary to earlier contributions, we argue that Meillassoux’s ...reflections on uncorrelated being not only serve an epistemological but also an ontological interest; both Meillassoux and Heidegger are interested in the way we have access to uncorrelated being as well as in the nature of uncorrelated being itself. After introducing Meillassoux’s criticism of the correlationism of Heidegger, we reflect on three arguments of his account of planet earth as un-correlated being; the emergence of planet earth, the presupposed accessibility of un-correlated being and his criticism of Heidegger’s fideism. Although it becomes clear that Meillassoux’s criticism of correlationism is not applicable in the case of Heidegger, it also helps us to articulate the relevance of Heidegger’s “realist” approach of uncorrelated being in contemporary philosophy.
Role of Water for Life Nordén, Bengt
Molecular Frontiers Journal,
06/2019, Volume:
3, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The behavior of benzoic acid in polyethylene inspired me to reflect on why water is a unique molecule that all living organisms depend upon. From properties of DNA in aqueous solution a seemingly ...counter-intuitive conjecture emerges: water is needed for the creation of certain dry low-dielectric nm-size environments where hydrogen bonding exerts strong recognition power. Such environments seem to be functionally crucial, and their interactions with other hydrophobic environments, or with hydrophobic agents that modulate the chemical potential of water, can cause structural transformations via ‘hydrophobic catalysis’. Possibly combined with an excluded volume osmosis effect (EVO), hydrophobic catalysis may have important biological roles, e.g., in genetic recombination. Hydrophobic agents are found to strongly accelerate spontaneous DNA strand exchange as well as certain other DNA rearrangement reactions. It is hypothesized that hydrophobic catalysis be involved in gene recognition and gene recombination mediated by bacterial RecA (one of the oldest proteins we know of) as well as in sexual recombination in higher organisms, by Rad51. Hydrophobically catalyzed unstacking fluctuations of DNA bases can favor elongated conformations, such as the recently proposed
Σ
-DNA, with potential regulatory roles. That living cells can survive as dormant spores, with very low water content and in principle as such travel far in space is reflected upon: a random walk model with solar photon pressure as driving force indicates our life on earth could not have originated outside our galaxy but possibly from many solar systems within it — at some place, though, where there was plenty of liquid water.
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