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Cooperative learning seems to be the right methodology to tackle the development of the teamwork competence inside the process of teaching?learning at the University. That strategy has been used by lecturers of different faculties and schools of the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU who have sorted an Educational Team on cooperative learning. The experience was developed in six different groups which add up as 185 students. The outcome of that experience was analysed by means of a questionnaire which gathers the main competences of teamwork. The analysis of the dimensions of the questionnaire shows a structure with two dimensions: (1) 'interpersonal competences' and (2) 'instrumental competences'. Students seem to prioritise the most technical or procedural competences (instrumental) over personal and relationship competences (interpersonal) in their formative process and assessment of their learning.

Thermodynamic cycles requiring high operating temperatures (≥750 °C up to 1200 °C) are currently being explored to improve the sun-to-electricity conversion efficiency of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants. This is calling for the design of new efficient high-temperature (≥750 °C) Thermochemical Energy Storage (TCES) systems, which are fundamental for supplying power on demand during off-sun periods. Recently, Fe-doped CaMnO3 oxides have been proposed as TCES candidate materials, and the determination of their thermodynamics properties via thermogravimetric (TG) analysis allowed evaluation of their heat storage capacity at a very small scale (mg scale). A 10 % Fe-doped CaMnO3 composition (CaMn0.9Fe0.1O3-δ – CMF91) emerged as optimum candidate material for TCES application due to its large heat storage capacity complemented by enhanced thermal stability over multiple oxidation/reduction cycles. To advance in the thermal characterization of these materials at a multigram scale, here we carried out bench-scale reactor tests using CMF91 under conditions considered representative of future CSP plants. The redox-active material has been extruded in the form of porous pellets through a simple production method that required the use of carboxymethylcellulose as a removable binder and water. With the bench-scale reactor tests, the CMF91 pellets showed fully reversible reduction-oxidation in cycles between 500 and 1100 °C under relevant operating pO2 conditions without any deterioration of the pellet's structural integrity. Remarkably, the material exhibited the same δ(T, pO2) profile at this significantly larger scale (~40 g) than the one derived from thermodynamics. Nevertheless, slight differences in oxygen release/uptake profiles between cooling and heating branches can be tracked down to an excess heat generation in the perovskite bed not efficiently extracted by the carrier gas. These results demonstrate that CMF91 oxide is ideally suited for thermal energy storage applications with a large total (thermochemical and sensible) heat storage capacity (~ 916 kJ/kgABO3 or ~ 400 kWh/m3) and good scalability. © 2022 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska- Curie grant agreement N◦ 74616. Support of the ACES2030-CM from “Comunidad de Madrid” and European Structural Funds to (P2018/EMT-4319), and the Spanish “Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad” through Research Challenges project ARROPAR-CEX (ENE2015-71254-C3-1-R) are also fully acknowledged. M. S´anchez is grateful to Spanish “Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad” by funding through internship FPI (BES-2016-077031). It is greatly acknowledged the Technical Research Support Unit of the Institute of Catalysis and Petroleum Chemistry (ICP-CSIC). The authors fully appreciate the advice provided by Prof. Pedro Avila and Dr. Raquel Portela from the SpeICat group of ICP-CSIC, about the procedure for pellets preparation. Supporting Information Peer reviewed

The concept and a new method for the shielded development of bottom gas hydrates have been proposed, the technological phases and constructive elements of their implementation have been substantiated. The research provides for the realization of the idea suggesting the simultaneous dissociation of the vast areas of a gas hydrate deposit, management of the targeted process of the penetration of methane recovered from gas hydrates into water space and its accumulation under the extensive gas-collecting shield wherefrom it is removed by bottom pipe transportation facilities. To do hydraulic fracturing, a well is drilled into the plane of the junction of the surface of a gas hydrate deposit and the rocks of a roof, the open system of fissures in the rocks of a roof is made through which produced gas is released to a gas-collecting blanket in a water.

Abstract The consumption of buildings for the production of heat is expected to decrease in Switzerland in the coming years, in particular following policies encouraging the refurbishment of buildings. This will notably have an impact on the natural gas network, in parallel with the penetration of electric-driven heat pumps. Through a detailed optimization scheme, the evolution of the natural gas (NG) distribution network is studied over a future period of forty years, i.e. up to 2050, on the territory of a large Swiss canton. By way of installing large shares of co-generation units, it is shown that the NG network does not lose its meshed structure, while continuing to play a central role in the production of heat and the generation of part of the additional electricity demand associated with the concomitant penetration of heat pumps. As a novel result, the developed optimization framework allows a detailed, geographically precise view of both the evolution of the NG network, as well as of the optimal location of selected technologies. The adoption of energy networks convergence in urban zones therefore can lead to relevant synergies, avoiding over-investments, increasing system resilience and fostering the use of efficient technologies.

The enhancement of mechanisms to protect the rights of migrants and refugees within the European Union represents a critical area for human-centered artificial intelligence (HCAI). Traditionally, the focus on algorithms alone has shifted toward a more comprehensive understanding of AI’s potential to shape technology in ways which better serve human needs, particularly for disadvantaged groups. Large language models (LLMs) and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) offer significant potential to bridging gaps for vulnerable populations, including immigrants, refugees, and individuals with disabilities. Implementing solutions based on these technologies involves critical factors which influence the pursuit of approaches aligning with humanitarian interests. This study presents a proof of concept utilizing the open LLM model LLAMA 3 and a linguistic corpus comprising legislative, regulatory, and assistance information from various European Union agencies concerning migrants. We evaluate generative metrics, energy efficiency metrics, and metrics for assessing contextually appropriate and non-discriminatory responses. Our proposal involves the optimal tuning of key hyperparameters for LLMs and RAG through multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods to ensure the solutions are fair, equitable, and non-discriminatory. The optimal configurations resulted in a 20.1% reduction in carbon emissions, along with an 11.3% decrease in the metrics associated with bias. The findings suggest that by employing the appropriate methodologies and techniques, it is feasible to implement HCAI systems based on LLMs and RAG without undermining the social integration of vulnerable populations.

This contribution presents new phenomena regarding the stability of pressure driven flows within annular pipes. The fluid is advected downstream due to an axial pressure gradient but also subjected to centrifugal mechanisms due to the independent rotation of the coaxial cylinders that contain it. Coexistence of upstream and downstream spiral secondary flows is observed in the co-rotating regime for a medium gap configuration η =0 . 5a nd the boundary bicritical curve is provided for a wide range of angular speeds of the cylinders and axial velocities. A particular computation of the linear stability of the basic flow is carried out for a small gap case with η =0 .77 in order to detect the unstable modes and recover the also termed as Double Secondary Spiral Flows observed experimentally in the past by other authors. The provided linear stability results for this case are, within their limitations, qualitatively consistent with the experimental observations.

This paper describes anaerobic thermophilic sludge digestion (55 °C) in a continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR) on a pilot-plant scale (150 L). The experimental protocol was defined to examine the effect of the increase in the organic loading rate on the efficiency of the digester and to report on its steady-state performance. The reactor was subjected to a programme of steady-state operation over a range of solids retention times (SRTs) of 75, 40, 27, 20 and 15 days and organic loading rates (OLR) in the range 0.4–2.2 kg VS/(m3 day). The digester was fed with raw sludge (containing approximately 35 kg/m3 volatile solids (VS)) once daily during the 75-day SRT period, twice daily during the 40-day SRT period and three times a day during the 27-, 20- and 15-day SRT periods. The reactor was initially operated with an organic loading rate of 0.4 kg VS/(m3 day) and an SRT of 75 days. The volatile solids removal efficiency in the reactor was found to be 73%, while the volumetric methane production rate produced in the digester reached 0.02 m3/(m3 day). Over a 338-day operating period, an OLR of 2.2 kg VS/(m3 day) was achieved with 49.1% VS removal efficiency in the pilot sludge digester, at which time the volumetric methane production rate content of biogas produced in the digester reached 0.4 m3/(m3 day). The chemical oxygen demand (COD) mass balance obtained indicated that COD used for methane generation increased when the SRT was decreased or when the influent organic loading rate was increased. This implies that the amount of COD used in the anabolism route decreased with SRT due the microbial population becoming adapted to new operational conditions and more COD being used to generate methane.