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This document is an introduction to a special issue of the journal SERIEs, which is dedicated to honoring the influential economist Manuel Arellano. The special issue follows a conference held in Madrid in 2022, where presentations were given by past and present co-authors of Arellano. Arellano, a renowned econometrician, has made significant contributions to panel data econometrics and empirical microeconomics. The special issue includes a collection of research articles that showcase the breadth and impact of Arellano's work. The document also expresses gratitude to those involved in organizing the conference and the special issue. [Extracted from the article]

Effective blood glucose management is crucial for people with diabetes to avoid acute complications. Predicting extreme values accurately and in a timely manner is of vital importance to them. People with diabetes are particularly concerned about suffering a hypoglycemia (low value) event and, moreover, that the event will be prolonged in time. It is crucial to predict hyperglycemia (high value) and hypoglycemia events that may cause health damages in the short term and potential permanent damages in the long term. This paper describes our research on predicting hypoglycemia events at 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes using machine learning methods. We propose using structured Grammatical Evolution and dynamic structured Grammatical Evolution to produce interpretable mathematical expressions that predict a hypoglycemia event. Our proposal generates white-box models induced by a grammar based on if-then-else conditions using blood glucose, heart rate, number of steps, and burned calories as the inputs for the machine learning technique. We apply these techniques to create three types of models: individualized, cluster, and population-based. They all are then compared with the predictions of eleven machine learning techniques. We apply these techniques to a dataset of 24 real patients of the Hospital Universitario Principe de Asturias, Madrid, Spain. The resulting models, presented as if-then-else statements that incorporate numeric, relational, and logical operations between variables and constants, are inherently interpretable. The True Positive Rate and True Negative Rate metrics are above 0.90 for 30-minute predictions, 0.80 for 60 min, and 0.70 for 90 min and 120 min for the three types of models. Individualized models exhibit the best metrics, while cluster and population-based models perform similarly. Structured and dynamic structured grammatical evolution techniques perform similarly for all forecasting horizons. Regarding the comparison of different machine learning techniques, on the shorter forecasting horizons, our proposals have a high probability of winning, a probability that diminishes on the longer time horizons. Structured grammatical evolution provides advanced forecasting models that facilitate model explanation, modification, and retesting, offering flexibility for refining solutions post-creation and a deeper understanding of blood glucose behavior. These models have been integrated into the glUCModel application, designed to serve people with diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After studying the unpublished sketches of the Spanish artist Pablo Palazuelo, this essay proposes the existence of geometric patterns that order his designs. To illustrate the proposal, this paper selects three representative projects by Palazuelo that attempt to demonstrate the presence of a working process related to a mathematical substrate. Specifically, the use of an irregular tiling is proposed for the creation of the following architectural elements: the scenery for a composition by Kandinsky (1950–1954), and the plan for a hotel on Princesa Street, Madrid, (1961). This study also examines the use of regular tessellations in the design of the ceilings of the Huarte Residence in Madrid, (1965). The treatises by Bourgoin and Ghyka have been selected from the library of Palazuelo as the primary theoretical bases of this study. This methodology constitutes a line of further research to analyze different architectural projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In IoT applications, prediction models have fundamental challenges such as real-time processing, producing results with considerable/without delay, and taking action against pattern drift. While existing models can excel when data statistics remain relatively stable, real-time systems may encounter difficulties, particularly when confronted with dynamic shifts in data behavior. Analyzing data streams generated by different IoT applications and detecting complex pattern on the fly has become an open area of research. Complex event processing with adaptivity is a must to get desired features in such models. To address this issue, a comprehensive model for prediction has been proposed in this paper. It consists of two phases: (1) the basic model is constructed using historical data, (2) a fast Fourier transform-based adaptive support vector regression (FFT-ASVR) approach is proposed to predict events embedded in IoT data streams. FFT-ASVR predicts abnormal events by experiencing a change in data streams with real-time model updation. The performance of FFT-ASVR with a similar existing method SVM-RBF is presented using real-time traffic data of Madrid city. The proposed approach has significant improvement in terms of mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) for prediction, is adaptive in nature, and is also capable of handling the issue of pattern drift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agent-based epidemiological simulators have been proven to be one of the most successful tools for the analysis of COVID-19 propagation. The ability of these tools to reproduce the behavior and interactions of each single individual leads to accurate and detailed results, which can be used to model fine-grained health-related policies like selective vaccination campaigns or immunity waning. One characteristic of these tools is the large amount of input data and computational resources that they require. This relies on the development of parallel algorithms and methodologies for generating, accessing, and processing large volumes of data from multiple data sources. This work presents a parallel workflow for extending the social modeling of EpiGraph, an agent-based simulator. We have included two novel parallel social generation stages that generate a detailed and realistic social model and one new visualization stage. This work also presents a description of the algorithms used in each stage, different optimization techniques that permit to reduce the application convergence time, and a practical evaluation of large workloads on HPC systems. Results show that this contribution can be efficiently executed in parallel architectures and the results allow to increase the simulation detail level, representing a significant advance in the simulator scenario modeling. As a summary of results, the first contribution of this paper is the development of two models (a spatial and a social one) that assign geographical and socioeconomic indicators to each simulated individual (i.e., agents), reproducing the real social distribution of the city of Madrid. The second contribution presents an improved parallel and distributed algorithm that executes the two aforementioned models using different parallelization strategies and preserving the load balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very unhealthy air quality is consistently connected with numerous diseases. Appropriate extreme analysis and accurate predictions are in rising demand for exploring potential linked causes and for providing suggestions for the environmental agency in public policy strategy. This paper aims to model the spatial and temporal pattern of both moderate and extremely poor PM 10 concentrations (of daily mean) collected from 342 representative monitors distributed throughout mainland Spain from 2017 to 2021. We first propose and compare a series of Bayesian hierarchical generalized extreme models of annual maxima PM 10 concentrations, including both the fixed effect of altitude, temperature, precipitation, vapour pressure and population density, as well as the spatio-temporal random effect with the Stochastic Partial Differential Equation (SPDE) approach and a lag-one dynamic auto-regressive component (AR(1)). Under WAIC, DIC and other criteria, the best model is selected with good predictive ability based on the first four-year data (2017–2020) for training and the last-year data (2021) for testing. We bring the structure of the best model to establish the joint Bayesian model of annual mean and annual maxima PM 10 concentrations and provide evidence that certain predictors (precipitation, vapour pressure and population density) influence comparably while the other predictors (altitude and temperature) impact reversely in the different scaled PM 10 concentrations. The findings are applied to identify the hot-spot regions with poor air quality using excursion functions specified at the grid level. It suggests that the community of Madrid and some sites in northwestern and southern Spain are likely to be exposed to severe air pollution, simultaneously exceeding the warning risk threshold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of location is the cornerstone of strategic decisions in retail management. This decision is usually complex and multidimensional. One of the most relevant success factors is an adequate balanced tenancy, i.e., a complementary ecosystem of retail stores in the surroundings, both in planned and unplanned areas. In this paper, we use network theory to analyze the commercial spatial interactions in all the cities of Castile and Leon (an autonomous community in north-western Spain), Madrid, and Barcelona. Our approach encompasses different proposals both for the definition of the interaction networks and for their subsequent analyses. These methodologies can be used as pre-processing tools to capture features that formalize the relational dimension for location recommendation systems. Our results unveil the retail structure of different urban areas and enable a meaningful comparison between cities and methodologies. In addition, by means of consensus techniques, we identify a robust core of commercial relationships, independent of the particularities of each city, and thus help to distinguish transferable knowledge between cities. The results also suggest greater specialization of commercial space with city size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is there a place in particular that international migrants would call home? How do they talk about it, where does it lie, and what characteristics is it expected to have, given their demographics and patterns of settlement? Similar questions are meaningful in themselves and in illuminating migrant biographical, family and housing trajectories. We address them, in this paper, through the categorization and multinomial analysis of the responses to a dedicated open-ended question in a survey on Ecuadorians in Madrid, Milan and London (n = 1175). This original dataset allows us to explore migrant views of home against the background of their demographics and of their migration and housing conditions. We analyse respondents' ways to articulate, spatialize and prioritize key aspects of home through a logit model, thereby assessing their association with age, length of stay, housing tenure, family networks and city of residence. Overall, their predominant construction of home points to a place in the country of settlement, but not necessarily to their own dwelling. Younger and newcomer immigrants see home as a primarily relational construct, whereas older and long-stayers emphasize its place-based and private dimension. Significant variations in the expected emplacement and bases of home can be found across cities of residence. However, no significant variations are associated either with gender or with migrants' transnational engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While many studies analyze the effect of extreme thermal events on health, little has been written about the effects of extreme cold on mortality. This scarcity of papers is particularly relevant when we search studies about extreme cold on the health of rural population. Therefore, we tried to analyze the effect of cold waves on urban areas and rural areas from Madrid and to test whether differentiated effects exist between both population classes. For this purpose, we analyzed data from the municipalities with over 10,000 inhabitants for the period from January 1, 2000 through December 31, 2013. Municipalities were classified as urban or rural (Eurostat), and they were grouped into similar climatological zones: Urban Metropolitan Centre (UMC), Rural Northern Mountains (RNM), Rural Centre (RC) and Southern Rural (SR). The dependent variable was the daily mortality rate due to natural causes per million inhabitants (CIE-X: A00-R99) that occurred between the months of November and March for the period. The independent variable was minimum daily temperature (ºC) (Tmin). Social and demographic contextual variables were used, including: population > age 64 (%), deprivation index and housing indicators. The analysis was carried out in three phases: (1) determination of the threshold temperature (Tthreshold) which defines the cold waves; (2) determination of the relative risk (RR) for cold waves using Poisson linear regression (GLM); and (3) using GLM of the binomial family, Odds Ratios (OR) were calculated to analyze the relationship between the frequency of the appearance of cold waves and the socioeconomic variables. Results: The UMC zone experienced 585 extreme cold events related to attributable increases in the mortality rate. The average number of cold waves in the rural zones was 319. The primary risk factor was the percentage of population over age 64, and the primary protective factor was housing rehabilitation. As a whole, the period experienced more cold waves (1542) than heat waves (1130). Conclusion: The UMC was more vulnerable than the rural areas. Furthermore, the results support the development of prevention policies, especially considering the fact that cold wave events were more frequent than heat waves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Madrid Regional Government (Central Spain) proposes a zone of the Guadarrama Mountains to be declared as a National Park. This paper reports on the zoning method developed to this end. The procedure followed considers compatibility of land uses with landscape characteristics and proposes protecting a part of the zone through declaration of National Park status and declaring another part as a Regional Park. The approach is based upon a multivariate environmental analysis aimed at zoning for optimal location of potential activities. The zoning permits the design of protected areas following the criteria underlying the declaration of these two categories in accordance with the Spanish environmental legislation in force. A practical tool for policy decision-making is provided. However, the final decision taken by policymakers in the design and zoning of protected areas differed from the model output used by the scientists. This is discussed in the paper to illustrate the interactions between political decision-making and scientific modelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about the first conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association held in Madrid, Spain from November 14 to 17, 2007 is presented. Topics include styles in the philosophy of science, evolution of attempts to characterize scientific knowledge, and the role of relative a priori principles in the history of physics. Several philosophers of science attended the conference including Mauro Dorato, Miklos Redei and Ilkka Niiniluoto.

Air pollutants harm human health and the environment. Nowadays, deploying an air pollution monitoring network in many urban areas could provide real-time air quality assessment. However, these networks are usually sparsely distributed and the sensor calibration problems that may appear over time lead to missing and wrong measurements. There is an increasing interest in developing air quality modelling methods to minimize measurement errors, predict spatial and temporal air quality, and support more spatially-resolved health effect analysis. This research aims to evaluate the ability of three feed-forward neural network architectures for the spatial prediction of air pollutant concentrations using the measures of an air quality monitoring network. In addition to these architectures, Support Vector Machines and geostatistical methods (Inverse Distance Weighting and Ordinary Kriging) were also implemented to compare the performance of neural network models. The evaluation of the methods was performed using the historical values of seven air pollutants (Nitrogen monoxide, Nitrogen dioxide, Sulphur dioxide, Carbon monoxide, Ozone, and particulate matters with size less than or equal to 2.5 μ m and to 10 μ m) from an urban air quality monitoring network located at the metropolitan area of Madrid (Spain). To assess and compare the predictive ability of the models, three estimation accuracy indicators were calculated: the Root Mean Squared Error, the Mean Absolute Error, and the coefficient of determination. FFNN-based models are superior to geostatistical methods and slightly better than Support Vector Machines for fitting the spatial correlation of air pollutant measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents evaluation of a plan for surveillance of and controlling the effects of heat-related mortality (PSCEHW), implemented in Madrid in 2004 through a time series analysis conducted with ARIMA modeling. From the public health point of view, prevention plans should be implemented as adaptive measures to heat waves. In 2003, the impact attributable to the heat wave was an increase in mortality per °C of 22.39 %. All heat waves since 2003 have been of lower intensity, and yet, in 2005 there was a heat wave of lower intensity that had a greater impact, i.e. an increase in mortality per °C of 45.71 %. With the methodology used here, we cannot say whether implementation of PSCEHW has resulted in a decrease of mortality attributable to high temperatures in the city of Madrid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry 4.0 is the realization of digital transformation including enhanced productivity and flexibility due to real-time decision-making, which is possible due to the high-speed internet, the internet of things, and smart machines capable of autonomously exchanging information, triggering actions, and controlling each other independently. A high level of education and skills is increasingly more important in the job market over the next years necessitating finding a balance among behavioural, technological, analytical, and entrepreneurial skills. EU and governments worldwide should invest in closing the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education as this will directly impact the economic growth. Even though there is some progress in the hiring percentage of women in large technological companies, a clear glass ceiling in leadership roles is still remains. Here, we have undertaken a pilot study at University Complutense of Madrid (UCM, Spain) aimed at empowering women in academia to transition from the "publish or perish" paradigm towards creating and protecting their intellectual property to close the gender gap in STEM fields and leadership roles as well as training to fuel the development of innovative start-ups addressing societal challenges. A total of 20 participants inclusive of UCM staff and postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers were enrolled after successfully obtaining at least a score of 5 out of 10 in custom-made Entrepreneurial competency test provided by Business and Professional Women Association (BPW, Spain) and theGrowBox Innovation Ltd. The study, approved by the UCM ethical committee, was conducted after participants engaged and completed a training programme on "Enterpreneurship in STEM-related fields in Higher Education" aimed to introduce the participants to the entrepreneurial world. This involved a structured training programme covering the (i) business canvas design; (ii) development of minimum viable product (MVP); (iii) market evaluation; (iv) finance analysis using the Growbox platform; (v) introduction to venture capital; and (vi) human resources management followed by individual mentoring sessions prior completion of their business plans that were pitched to a panel of mentors and BPW representatives. Finally, all participants completed an anonymous survey of 12 open questions to evaluate the impact of the training in awakening the entrepreneurial spirit in academic researchers in Higher Education in STEM-related fields. Three-quarters of participants were novices in terms of Entrepreneurship, but all participants after the programme presented a complete business plan. The three points that women identified as prohibitive factors were lack of self-confidence, ambition, and knowledge in the fields of patent filing, finance and marketing. Participants were likely to initiate their own start-up in the next five years, but had mixed fillings regarding the complexity of the process. Nine months after the course ended, four out of 20 participants have been successful in attracting initial funding to support the initiation of a start-up involving protected intellectual property and managed to secure an award to provide them with office space to build their company. The long-term impact of this training programme will need to be followed up. Entrepreneurial training is crucial to be embedded in curricula for postgraduate and if possible undergraduate students to pursue a major transformation targeting the STEM-related fields in Higher Education to enable women in becoming key participants and leaders in the Industry 4.0 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Injuries to the dentofacial region caused by third parties can affect physiological, sensory and esthetic functions with legal repercussions. The personal and social circumstances generated by Covid-19 and the governmental measures taken to control it, have increased the risk factors for violence and with it, the resulting injury rate. The aim of the present investigation was to compare the amount of civil liability for dental injury crimes agreed by Spanish courts, in certain Autonomous Communities, before and during the pandemic situation caused by Covid-19. For this purpose, a analytic cross-sectional study was carried out by analyzing sentences from the database of the Judicial Documentation Center. A comparison of means (one-way ANOVA) was used on the amount of compensation between the different years, and between the Autonomous Communities of Madrid, Catalonia Cataluña, Andalusia, the Canary Islands and the Valencian Community. It was observed that the year 2020 stood out for the increase in the number of cases of dental injury offenses. For its part, the Autonomous Community of Andalusia showed the highest amount of compensation during the pandemic, although the highest number of cases corresponded to the Community of Madrid. The statistical analysis yielded a probability of more than 0.05, which eliminated the possibility of significant differences in each of the comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A quantum channel is a physical media able to carry quantum signals. Quantum key distribution (QKD) requires direct quantum channels between every pair of prepare-and-measure modules. This requirement heavily compromises the scalability of networks of directly connected QKD modules. A way to avoid this problem is to introduce switches that can dynamically reconfigure the set of connections. The reconfiguration of a quantum channel implies that the modules using it can adapt to the new channel and peer. The maturity and flexibility of continuous-variable QKD (CV-QKD) qualifies it as a strong contender for integration into optical communication networks. Here we present the implementation of a switched CV-QKD network embedded in the Madrid quantum testbed. The optical switching of the quantum paths significantly reduces the amount of required QKD modules and facilitates the scalability of the network. This demonstration highlights the flexibility and ease of integration of this emerging technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to propose an integrated planning model to adequate the offered capacity and system frequencies to attend the increased passenger demand and traffic congestion around urban and suburban areas. The railway capacity is studied in line planning, however, these planned frequencies were obtained without accounting for rolling stock flows through the rapid transit network. In order to provide the problem more freedom to decide rolling stock flows and therefore better adjusting these flows to passenger demand, a new integrated model is proposed, where frequencies are readjusted. Then, the railway timetable and rolling stock assignment are also calculated, where shunting operations are taken into account. These operations may sometimes malfunction, causing localized incidents that could propagate throughout the entire network due to cascading effects. This type of operations will be penalized with the goal of selectively avoiding them and ameliorating their high malfunction probabilities. Swapping operations will also be ensured using homogeneous rolling stock material and ensuring parkings in strategic stations. We illustrate our model using computational experiments drawn from RENFE (the main Spanish operator of suburban passenger trains) in Madrid, Spain. The results show that through this integrated approach a greater robustness degree can be obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have illustrated the short-term effects of environmental factors such as air pollution on health, using a wide range of time-series regression models. However, there have been few reports of descriptive analyses based on data visualization, which can be used for a preliminary inspection of relationships between health outcomes and exposure factors. The commonly used scatterplot, displaying a large number of points, cannot adequately assess complex bivariate dependence structures. This paper presents a graphical display, the chi-plot, which, used jointly with the scatterplot, provides a powerful tool to describe a varied range of bivariate dependence structures in environmental epidemiology studies. We studied the relationship between emergency room admissions for asthma, air pollutants and pollen types in Madrid (Spain) during the period 1995–1998. Associations were depicted graphically using chi-plots and were consistent with those previously reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Economic Botany is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Several factors, singly or in combination, have proven relevant in promoting nestedness in animal communities (area, isolation, habitat structure, etc.); however, little empirical evidence exists about the role of human disturbance. The goal of this paper was to assess whether human disturbance (pedestrians) may affect bird species composition in such a way as to generate a nested distributional pattern. The study was conducted in an urban fragmented landscape, the city of Madrid, where wooded parks were suitable fragments for many bird species, and had different levels of human visitation. At the community level, the distribution of species was significantly nested in two consecutive breeding seasons. Using two different procedures ("temperature" and "departures" methods) to analyse causality in nestedness, I found that pedestrian rate, fragment size and the diversity of stems were significantly correlated to the nested pattern. When analysed simultaneously, and controlling for their independent effects, these factors still accounted for nestedness. Pedestrian rate was the only factor significantly associated with changes in species composition between years. At the individual species level, 74 and 41% of species were significantly nested in relation to pedestrian rate in 1997 and 1998, respectively; however, these percentages were independent of foraging substrate and body size. Besides the classic area and habitat diversity effects, human disturbance can also promote nestedness: locally, by restraining the time and space of foraging and breeding opportunities, thus reducing fragment suitability, and regionally, by increasing extinction and decreasing colonization probabilities in highly disturbed fragments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the characteristics of residential zones in Madrid, Spain. The primary difference between zones is found to lie in a new bourgeoisie life-style dimension. Working women are found to be the best indicator of this dimension, which also involves servants, natives of Madrid and high degrees of literacy. Fertility-related considerations, however, are unrelated to working women, and this is explained as due to the availability of domestic help and "women-oriented" working arrangements. Fertility and socioeconomic status are found to be interrelated and constitute a second dimension of residential segregation. In conclusion, Madrid is examined in relation to both more and less industrialized cities, leading to a further modification of social area theory contentions concerning the ecology of stratification in developing cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Displacements within urban spaces have attracted particular interest among researchers. We examine the journeys that happen in the Madrid Community considering 24 travel typologies and 1390 administrative areas. From an origin–destination (OD) matrix, four classes of major flows are characterised through coarse-graining: hotspot–non-hotspots, non-hotspot–hotspots, hotspots–hotspots, non-hotspot–non-hotspot. In order to make comparisons between them with respect to spatial and temporal patterns, several statistical tests are performed. The spatial activity as well as transition probabilities between administrative zones are also analysed. The mobility network's topology is examined (some parameters such as maximal connected components, average degree, betweenness, and assortativity as well as the k-cores are checked). A model describing the formation of links between zones (existence of at least one trip between them) is constructed based on certain measures of affinity between areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A qualitative case study of self-identifying Muslim youth of migrant origin in Madrid sought to understand how they formulated identity and employed real cultural practices in navigating belonging. The majority of these youth drew from the so-called "1.5" and "second" generations, and expressed a hyphenated or hybrid identity: they combined one or several aspects of religious, cultural or ethnic identity alongside an identification with Spain or Madrid. As such, these layered and complex identities could indicate attachment to community of residence. Hybridity was also manifested in behaviours, with participants demonstrating multiple language use, as well as variegated cultural or religious practice. Moreover, in negotiating inclusion and belonging, some argued for their rights to express these plural identities and engage in diverse cultural practices, particularly when such rights were perceived as denied. This paper primarily contends that participants leveraged hybrid identities in representing themselves and finding common ground: they maintained attachments to Madrid or Spain alongside their minority identification and diverse cultural practices, or incorporated these practices in engaging with their communities. It furthermore observes that despite perceived experiences of discrimination, this population's claims to membership and respect for individual rights reflected an understanding of citizenship based in participation and recognition of difference, raising questions as to the impact of past or future citizenship policy and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Diet, Physical Activity and Health (Alimentación, Actividad física y Salud, ALAS) program is an intervention implemented by the municipal health services of Madrid with the objective of reducing weight and preventing diabetes in high-risk population by improving diet and physical activity. The ALAS program combines individual visits with a 10-session group workshop that takes place over a 6-month period. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the ALAS intervention implemented under real-life conditions between 2016 and 2019. The intervention was evaluated with a pre- and post-intervention study with follow-up performed 6 and 12 months from the start of the program. The analyzed outcomes were a 5–10% reduction in the initial weight, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference and a change in glycemic status in prediabetic participants. Statistical models were adjusted by sociodemographic variables. The participants were recruited from municipal community health centers or referred by municipal occupational health services. Between 2016 and 2019, 1629 people participated in the program. At 6 months, 85% of the participants had lost weight; 43% had lost 5% or more of their initial weight, and 12% had lost 10% or more. Regarding BMI, 22.3% of participants who were initially obese were no longer obese, and 15.2% of the overweight participants achieved normal weight. A total of 35.1% of the prediabetic participants reverted to normoglycemic status. The intervention was found to be more effective for men, for those who completed the intervention and those who accessed the program through the occupational health route. Among the participants who accessed the intervention via the community, the intervention was more effective in those with a high educational level. The evaluation demonstrated the effectiveness of the ALAS program for reducing weight and the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes when applied under real-life conditions. The effectiveness of the intervention differed according to gender, access route and educational level of the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of record-breaking events is of interest in fields such as climatology, hydrology or anthropology. In connection with the record occurrence, we propose three distribution-free statistics for the changepoint detection problem. They are CUSUM-type statistics based on the upper and/or lower record indicators observed in a series. Using a version of the functional central limit theorem, we show that the CUSUM-type statistics are asymptotically Kolmogorov distributed. The main results under the null hypothesis are based on series of independent and identically distributed random variables, but a statistic to deal with series with seasonal component and serial correlation is also proposed. A Monte Carlo study of size, power and changepoint estimate has been performed. Finally, the methods are illustrated by analyzing the time series of temperatures at Madrid, Spain. The R package RecordTest publicly available on CRAN implements the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides an overview of the First Madrid Conference on Queueing Theory which was held at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain from July 2-5, 2002. Focus of the conference; Trends covered by the conference.

Professor Dolado has developed much of his professional career in three cities: Zaragoza, Oxford and Madrid. This fact, together with the recent appearance of literature relating climate with human behavior, has inspired us to analyze a set of relevant climate change issues linked to these areas, particularly any possible heterogeneity. The novel methodology proposed in (Gadea Rivas and Gonzalo in J Econom 214:153–174, 2020a for analyzing a wide range of characteristics of the temperature distribution (converting them into time series objects), instead of focusing solely on the mean, allows us to carry out this analysis. Using this methodology, we can identify local warming patterns within the global warming phenomenon of different types and intensities. The results show that there is a clear warming process in the three areas. The two Spanish cities (Zaragoza and Madrid) have many similarities, but Oxford fits into a different type of warming category. The former are characterized by higher trends in the upper quantiles than in the lower, an increase in dispersion, acceleration and an "upper amplification" with respect to the mean. In Oxford, the type of climate change is different, displaying higher trends in the lower quantiles, a weak negative trend in dispersion, "lower amplification" and a more attenuated acceleration in recent decades. There is no doubt that a better knowledge of local warming heterogeneity is recommendable for the design of more effective mitigation policies. The influence of the climate on human behavior and, specifically, on Professor Dolado's personality, takes us into lesser-known regions which are left for the reader to discern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A land classification method was designed for the Community of Madrid (CM), which has lands suitable for either agriculture use or natural spaces. The process started from an extensive previous CM study that contains sets of land attributes with data for 122 types and a minimum-requirements method providing a land quality classification (SQ) for each land. Borrowing some tools from Operations Research (OR) and from Decision Science, that SQ has been complemented by an additive valuation method that involves a more restricted set of 13 representative attributes analysed using Attribute Valuation Functions to obtain a quality index, QI, and by an original composite method that uses a fuzzy set procedure to obtain a combined quality index, CQI, that contains relevant information from both the SQ and the QI methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution in large cities produces numerous diseases and even millions of deaths annually according to the World Health Organization. Pollen exposure is related to allergic diseases, which makes its prediction a valuable tool to assess the risk level to aeroallergens. However, airborne pollen concentrations are difficult to predict due to the inherent complexity of the relationships among both biotic and environmental variables. In this work, a stochastic approach based on supervised machine learning algorithms was performed to forecast the daily Olea pollen concentrations in the Community of Madrid, central Spain, from 1993 to 2018. Firstly, individual Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM) and artificial neural network (ANN) models were applied to predict the day of the year (DOY) when the peak of the pollen season occurs, resulting the estimated average peak date 149.1 ± 9.3 and 150.1 ± 10.8 DOY for LightGBM and ANN, respectively, close to the observed value (148.8 ± 9.8). Secondly, the daily pollen concentrations during the entire pollen season have been calculated using an ensemble of two-step GAM followed by LightGBM and ANN. The results of the prediction of daily pollen concentrations showed a coefficient of determination (r2) above 0.75 (goodness of the model following cross-validation). The predictors included in the ensemble models were meteorological variables, phenological metrics, specific site-characteristics, and preceding pollen concentrations. The models are state-of-the-art in machine learning and their potential has been shown to be used and deployed to understand and to predict the pollen risk levels during the main olive pollen season. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landscapes are changing, with rural areas becoming increasingly urbanized. Children and adolescents are underrepresented in the sense-of-place literature. Our study aimed to understand how adolescent residents of a rural–urban transition area perceive and value their urbanizing landscape by examining sense of place and perceptions of landscape change. A Public Participation GIS approach, accompanied by a questionnaire survey, was applied to elicit responses from a sample of 747 students aged 12–18 in Colmenar Viejo, Madrid (Spain). Respondents' sense of "self-in-place" or home range was small, around 1 km, although valued places were identified up to around 17 km away, and occasionally further afield. Most responses were associated with urban land, with clear difference between the urban core, strongly associated with emotions, and the suburbs, with activities. Functional locations (i.e. sports facilities) and places which were valued for their social meaning (i.e. shopping malls), could be differentiated. Students were perceptive about change processes in the urban area, but not about those on the peripheral semi-natural land. Younger children were less aware than older children of spaces outside of the town and carried out fewer activities there. Females carried out fewer outdoor activities than male adolescents. In contrast to the adult population, students were more strongly focused on urban areas than on their surrounding rural landscapes. Here, awareness-raising and incentives are needed, particularly those encouraging females into the use of areas beyond the urban land. Our results suggest a lack of meaningful integration between the core city and the periphery, with lessons for urban planners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the failure of the Twelfth World Congress of Sociology in Madrid, Spain, from July 9-13, 1990. Even by the customary standards of the International Sociological Association, which are not high, the treatment received by participants was questionable. The housing arrangements had been entrusted to a private travel agency named Ibercolor. Foreign guests at the Congress were required to make hotel reservations several months in advance, with substantial deposits. Ibercolor received deposits from the majority of foreign guests but sent out no confirmations so that people had to stand in long, slow lines at the Congress headquarters to discover where one is supposed to stay. Many people found that they had been assigned to a hotel of a more expensive category than the one they had requested. They had no recourse since Ibercolor refused, to return deposits for any reason. Moreover, the special Congress rates arranged by Ibercolor turned out to be higher than the customary rates posted in each hotel room But the hotels refused to accept direct payment; guests were required to pay their hotel bills to Ibercolor, after another long wait in line.

The article reports on the rumor that Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman will win a medal this coming August 22, 2006 at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, Spain. Three papers suggest that Perelman's proof of the Poincaré conjecture is right. John Morgan, topologist at Columbia University in New York, said that he is completely convinced that Perelman has proven the Poincaré conjecture.

In many areas of the northern Mediterranean Basin the abundance of forest and scrubland vegetation is increasing, commensurate with decreases in agricultural land use(s). Much of the land use/cover change (LUCC) in this region is associated with the marginalization of traditional agricultural practices due to ongoing socioeconomic shifts and subsequent ecological change. Regression-based models of LUCC have two purposes: (i) to aid explanation of the processes driving change and/or (ii) spatial projection of the changes themselves. The independent variables contained in the single ‘best’ regression model (that is, that which minimizes variation in the dependent variable) cannot be inferred as providing the strongest causal relationship with the dependent variable. Here, we examine the utility of hierarchical partitioning and multinomial regression models for, respectively, explanation and prediction of LUCC in EU Special Protection Area 56, ‘Encinares del río Alberche y Cofio’ (SPA 56) near Madrid, Spain. Hierarchical partitioning estimates the contribution of regression model variables, both independently and in conjunction with other variables in a model, to the total variance explained by that model and is a tool to isolate important causal variables. By using hierarchical partitioning we find that the combined effects of factors driving land cover transitions varies with land cover classification, with a coarser classification reducing explained variance in LUCC. We use multinomial logistic regression models solely for projecting change, finding that accuracies of maps produced vary by land cover classification and are influenced by differing spatial resolutions of socioeconomic and biophysical data. When examining LUCC in human-dominated landscapes such as those of the Mediterranean Basin, the availability and analysis of spatial data at scales that match causal processes is vital to the performance of the statistical modelling techniques used here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I studied patterns of sex ratio variation in 543 fledglings from 192 broods of Montagu's harriers Circus pygargus (1992–1998) in Madrid, central Spain, to determine whether offspring sex ratio was adjusted according to variables influencing future reproduction. Fledgling sex ratio variation was related to estimates of food availability during the pre-laying period, with more females produced in years of higher food availability. This variation was related to the probability that females, but not males, were recruited to the breeding population and were recruited at younger ages, if fledged in good food years. Furthermore, the relationship between food and sex ratio was only significant for the first two nestlings in each brood, and only nestlings from first and second ranks benefited from good breeding conditions to advance their age of first breeding. Results presented here differ from other published data for the same species. Geographical variation in observed sex ratio might be explained by differences between populations in factors influencing age of first breeding or other demographic variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the factors affecting residential satisfaction among elderly people in Madrid, Spain. Methods used in determining residential satisfaction; Elements of residential satisfaction; Usage of a regression model.

The aim of this transversal study was to describe the virological and immunological features of HIV-infected youths transferred from pediatric to adult care units since 1997 vs. the non-transferred patients from the Madrid Cohort of HIV-infected children and adolescents in Spain. We included 106 non-transferred and 184 transferred patients under clinical follow-up in 17 public hospitals in Madrid by the end of December 2017. Virological and immunological outcomes were compared in transferred vs. non-transferred patients. ART drug resistance mutations and HIV-variants were analyzed in all subjects with available resistance pol genotypes and/or genotypic resistance profiles. Among the study cohort, 133 (72.3%) of 184 transferred and 75 (70.7%) of 106 non-transferred patients had available resistance genotypes. Most (88.9%) of transferred had ART experience at sampling. A third (33.3%) had had a triple-class experience. Acquired drug resistance (ADR) prevalence was significantly higher in pretreated transferred than non-transferred patients (71.8% vs. 44%; p = 0.0009), mainly to NRTI (72.8% vs. 31.1%; p < 0.0001) and PI (29.1% vs. 12%; p = 0.0262). HIV-1 non-B variants were less frequent in transferred vs. non-transferred (6.9% vs. 32%; p < 0.0001). In conclusion, the frequent resistant genotypes found in transferred youths justifies the reinforcement of HIV resistance monitoring after the transition to avoid future therapeutic failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In densely populated urban centers, increased air temperature due to urban heat island (UHI) effect can undermine the thermal comfort and health of citizens. Research has shown that large urban parks can mitigate the effect of UHIs and improve thermal comfort, especially in the warmer months of the year when temperature changes are more noticeable. This study investigated the cooling effect intensity (CEI) of the Retiro Park in the center of Madrid at three different distances from its southern edge and the impact of this cooling effect on thermal comfort from physiological and psychological perspectives. This investigation was performed by measuring microclimate data and conducting a survey simultaneously during the summer days. Results: The results showed that the CEI of the park varies with distance from its edge. Because of this effect, air temperature within the 130 m and 280 m distance of the park was, respectively, 1.6 °C and 0.9 °C lower than the temperature at the 520 m distance (the nearest heat island). After examining the effect of the park in terms of physiological equivalent temperature (PET), it was found that the PET at the 130 m and 280 m distance of the park was 9.3% and 5.4% less than the PET in the heat island domain. More than 81% of the respondents (in all three areas) had a mental image of the park as the place where they would experience the highest level of outdoor thermal comfort, and this rate was higher in the areas closer to the park. The analysis of citizens' responses about perceived thermal comfort (PTC) showed that citizens in areas with higher CEI had perceived a higher degree of thermal comfort from the psychological perspective. Conclusion: This study demonstrates the significant role of large urban parks located in the core of the populated cities in providing thermal comfort for citizens from both physiological and psychological perspectives. Additionally, the results of this study demonstrated that among the environmental (natural and artificial) factors around the park (topography, urban structure, etc.), the aspect ratio has the greatest impact on thermal comfort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) meeting held in Madrid Spain in November 1995. The meeting focused on issues relating to climate change. The meeting was attended by government delegates from 96 countries, scientists representing the authors of the 11 chapters of the IPCC report, and 14 representatives of non-governmental organizations. Some of the participants had strong environmentalist agendas, while others represented business and industry. The Global Climate Coalition was among the most active in challenging the IPCC's conclusions on climate change.

The article cites a study conducted by Ismael Galván of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, Spain and his colleagues to examine the difference in great-tit (Parus major) chicks tarsus' length, which is an approach to judge growth rate. The researchers have considered to paint the yellow feathers of the said chicks with a marker pen that reduces the ultraviolet reflectance of a surface. It is determined that maintaining the ultraviolet reflectance is one way to identify how fit a chick is and which the parents feed most.

OBJECTIVE:: The aim of this study was to determine the desire to lose weight in a group of university students, and to analyse the influence of this desire on declared food habits. The degree of knowledge on what constitutes a balanced diet was also determined. DESIGN:: Cross-sectional population survey. SUBJECTS:: The study subjects were 234 university students (48 males and 186 females) aged 22.3±1.5?y. The weight and height of each were recorded. All subjects were questioned on their desire to lose weight, habitual food intake frequencies, and about what they considered to constitute a balanced diet. RESULTS:: Approximately half the population (47.9%), both male (47.8%) and female (47.9%), expressed a desire to lose weight, even though the percentage of overweight students was low (11.1% overall, although much greater among male students [39.6%] than female students [3.8]). The body mass index (BMI) of those who wanted to lose weight was greater than that of those who did not. Nonetheless, the majority of subjects (especially females) showed BMIs within the normal range (18-25?kg/m2). Among those who wished to lose weight, the consumption of sweet foods was lower - although these subjects believed they ought to consume even less. It was also thought necessary that egg consumption be reduced, although no differences were recorded in declared consumption between those who wished to lose weight and those who did not. CONCLUSIONS:: The results show that there is great concern over body weight, although no great differences were seen in the food habits and nutrition knowledge of those who wished to lose weight and those who did not.European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2003) 57, Suppl 1, S90-S93. doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601807 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE:: To determine the relationships between habitual breakfast habits and performance in verbal aptitude, logical reasoning and mathematical tests in a group of well-nourished scholars from Madrid. DESIGN:: The study subjects were 180 children between 9 and 13?y of age. A dietetic study was undertaken using a 7-day food record. Scholastic aptitude was examined using the scholastic aptitude test (SAT-1) test. RESULTS:: Breakfast made up 19.1% of total daily intake. No differences were found between subjects in terms of personal data or total diet with respect to whether they habitually took adequate breakfasts (AB) (ie, more than 20% of daily energy being provided by this meal) or inadequate breakfasts (IB) (less than 20%). However, AB subjects achieved better reasoning scores in the SAT-1 test. CONCLUSIONS:: The normal breakfast habits of schoolchildren should be taken into account when studying diet-mental function relationships, even when studying well-nourished populations. SPONSORSHIP:: This study was performed with help from Danone España S.A.European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2003) 57, Suppl 1, S49-S53. doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601815 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]