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Oxidative phosphorylation is among the most conserved mitochondrial pathways. However, one of the cornerstones of this pathway, the multi-protein complex NADH : ubiquinone oxidoreductase (complex I) has been lost multiple independent times in diverse eukaryotic lineages. The causes and consequences of these convergent losses remain poorly understood. Here, we used a comparative genomics approach to reconstruct evolutionary paths leading to complex I loss and infer possible evolutionary scenarios. By mining available mitochondrial and nuclear genomes, we identified eight independent events of mitochondrial complex I loss across eukaryotes, of which six occurred in fungal lineages. We focused on three recent loss events that affect closely related fungal species, and inferred genomic changes convergently associated with complex I loss. Based on these results, we predict novel complex I functional partners and relate the loss of complex I with the presence of increased mitochondrial antioxidants, higher fermentative capabilities, duplications of alternative dehydrogenases, loss of alternative oxidases and adaptation to antifungal compounds. To explain these findings, we hypothesize that a combination of previously acquired compensatory mechanisms and exposure to environmental triggers of oxidative stress (such as hypoxia and/or toxic chemicals) induced complex I loss in fungi. ; This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant no. PGC2018-099921-B-I00), cofounded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF); from the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya; from the Catalan Research Agency (AGAUR) SGR423; from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and (grant no. ERC-2016-724173); and from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III—Instituto Nacional de Bioinformatica, (grant no. PT17/0009/0023—ISCIII-SGEFI/ERDF). M.À.S.-T. received a Predoctoral Each Fellowship from 'Caixa' Foundation (grant no. LCF/BQ/DR19/11740023). ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)

The multifractal detrended fluctuation algorithm is applied to a series of distances and elapsed times between consecutive earthquakes recorded along the years 2000–2018 in the Canterbury region (New Zealand). The time evolution of several multifractal parameters (Hurst exponent, Hölder central and maximum exponents, spectral amplitude, asymmetry, and complexity index) is analyzed. Peaks of multifractal parameters, with statistical significance exceeding 95%, are associated with three earthquakes of notable magnitude (equaling or exceeding Mw = 5.7). Additionally, some other peaks are also associated with the swarm of earthquakes of moderate magnitude. Possible shortcomings created by this assignment to mainshocks or swarms can be removed by comparing the results corresponding to elapsed times and interevent distances between consecutive events. Additionally, the Buishand test, which is used to verify the statistical significance of the detected peaks, also discriminates between mainshocks of notable seismic magnitude and swarms of earthquakes with moderate magnitude. The obtained results, based on the multifractal structure of the seismic activity, could also represent some advances in predicting, with sufficient time, forthcoming mainshocks of high magnitude and mitigate their destructive effects. ; The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, under Grant Agreement No. 823844, the ChEESE CoE Project. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)

Air pollution caused by small particles is a major public health problem in many cities of the world. One of the most contaminated cities is Mexico City. The fact that it is located in a volcanic crater surrounded by mountains helps thermal inversion and imply a huge pollution problem by trapping a thick layer of smog that float over the city. Modeling air pollution is a political and administrative important issue due to the fact that the prediction of critical events should guide decision making. The need for countermeasures against such episodes requires predicting with accuracy and in advance relevant indicators of air pollution, such are particles smaller than 2.5 microns (PM 2.5). In this work two different fuzzy approaches for modeling PM 2.5 concentrations in Mexico City metropolitan area are compared with respect the simple persistence method. ; Postprint (published version)

Purpose: Political parties spend significant amounts of resources during their election campaigns, which are usually designed in a sub-optimal and informal way. This study aims to provide a mathematical framework for political parties to optimize their election campaigns, so that they can maximize their performance in the elections. Design/methodology/approach: In this work, we provide certain mathematical relations to determine the minimum necessary number of votes to gain additional seats in an election region under the D'hondt election rule. Also we develop a convenient mathematical model that optimizes the resource allocation scheme of a political party to maximize the potential seats won. We test our models on Turkish Parliamentary elections data Findings: Our results show that with various basic assumptions, which are suitable for real life cases, one can obtain significant gains in the election outcomes even with small budgets. We also provide the relations among swing vote rates, unit vote costs and budget with the number seats won in a parliament. Originality/value: This study provides useful insights for both political party management teams as well as researchers. Political parties need to conduct more market research to collect and work on election data to increase their performances. From the research perspective, to the best of our knowledge, this is one of first studies that approaches to the election campaigns for the D'hondt system with mathematical optimization tools. ; Peer Reviewed

Purpose: Political parties spend significant amounts of resources during their election campaigns, which are usually designed in a sub-optimal and informal way. This study aims to provide a mathematical framework for political parties to optimize their election campaigns, so that they can maximize their performance in the elections. Design/methodology/approach: In this work, we provide certain mathematical relations to determine the minimum necessary number of votes to gain additional seats in an election region under the D'hondt election rule. Also we develop a convenient mathematical model that optimizes the resource allocation scheme of a political party to maximize the potential seats won. We test our models on Turkish Parliamentary elections data Findings: Our results show that with various basic assumptions, which are suitable for real life cases, one can obtain significant gains in the election outcomes even with small budgets. We also provide the relations among swing vote rates, unit vote costs and budget with the number seats won in a parliament. Originality/value: This study provides useful insights for both political party management teams as well as researchers. Political parties need to conduct more market research to collect and work on election data to increase their performances. From the research perspective, to the best of our knowledge, this is one of first studies that approaches to the election campaigns for the D'hondt system with mathematical optimization tools. ; Peer Reviewed

Predicting the variations in climate for the coming 1–10 years is of great interest for decision makers, as this time horizon coincides with the strategic planning of stakeholders from climate-vulnerable sectors such as agriculture. This study attempts to illustrate the potential value of decadal predictions in the development of climate services by establishing interactions and collaboration with stakeholders concerned with food production and security. Building on our experience from interacting with users and the increased understanding of their needs gathered over the years through our participation in various European activities and initiatives, we developed a decadal forecast product that provides tailored and user-friendly information about multi-year dry conditions for the coming five years over global wheat harvesting regions. This study revealed that the coproduction approach, where the interaction between the user and climate service provider is established at an early stage of forecast product development, is a fundamental step to successfully provide useful and ultimately actionable information to the interested stakeholders. The study also provides insights that shed light on the reasons for the delayed entry of decadal predictions in the climate services discourse and practice, obtained from surveying climate scientists and discussing with decadal prediction experts. Finally, it shows the key challenges that this new source of climate information still faces. ; We would like to acknowledge financial support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (MED-GOLD; Grant No. 776467, EUCP; Grant No. 776613 and FOCUS-Africa; Grant No. 869575). This study has also received support from C3S_34c (contract number: ECMWF/COPERNICUS/2019/ C3S_34c_DWD) of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) operated by ECMWF. We thank Angel G. Muñoz and an anonymous reviewer for their invaluable comments on the manuscript. BSM acknowledges additional financial support from the Marie ...

The present report aims to provide a comprehensive picture of the pandemic situation of COVID-19 in the EU countries, and to be able to foresee the situation in the next coming days. We employ an empirical model, verified with the evolution of the number of confirmed cases in previous countries where the epidemic is close to conclude, including all provinces of China. The model does not pretend to interpret the causes of the evolution of the cases but to permit the evaluation of the quality of control measures made in each state and a short-term prediction of tendencies. Note, however, that the effects of the measures' control that start on a given day are not observed until approximately 5-7 days later. The model and predictions are based on two parameters that are daily fitted to available data: a: the velocity at which spreading specific rate slows down; the higher the value, the better the control. K: the final number of expected cumulated cases, which cannot be evaluated at the initial stages because growth is still exponential. Next, we show a report with 8 graphs and a table with the short-term predictions for (1) European Union and its countries, (2) other countries, (3) Spain and its autonomous communities. We are currently adjusting the model to countries and regions with at least 4 days with more than 100 confirmed cases and a current load over 200 cases. The predicted period of a country depends on the number of datapoints over this 100 cases threshold: Group A: countries that have reported more than 100 cumulated cases for 10 consecutive days or more ¿ 3-5 days prediction; Group B: countries that have reported more than 100 cumulated cases for 7 to 9 consecutive days ¿ 2 days prediction; Group C: countries that have reported more than 100 cumulated cases for 4 to 6 days ¿ 1 d ay prediction. We have introduced a change in fittings, that are now weighted at some points. The whole methodology employed in the inform is explained in the last pages of this document. ; These reports are funded by the European Commission (DG CONNECT, LC-01485746) PJC and MC received funding from "la Caixa" Foundation (ID 100010434), under agreement LCF/PR/GN17/50300003; CP, DL, SA, MC, received funding from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and FEDER, with the project PGC2018-095456-B-I00 ; Postprint (published version)

[spa] En los últimos años, el sistema universitario está experimentando numerosos e importantes cambios. Son muchos los esfuerzos que se han dedicado hacia la generalización del acceso al sistema y, como consecuencia, a la captación de estudiantes intentando dar respuesta, por ejemplo, al descenso demográfico que se ha hecho patente. Existen múltiples perspectivas desde las que desarrollar los efectos de los últimos años de modificación del sistema de Educación Superior y, por tanto, parece necesario comenzar a evaluar los cambios no sólo desde una perspectiva política, también desde una perspectiva científica y, en especial, desde la Economía Social. Así pues, con la adaptación al Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior las diferencias entre países se han hecho aún más evidentes, motivo por el cual la evaluación de las consecuencias de este proceso está suscitando el interés en las instituciones y, además, se convierte en objeto de atención científica. Medir y evaluar el impacto que provocan las inversiones realizadas en cada uno de los países, las diferencias entre ellos, el poder de arrastre de la Educación Superior, las distintas velocidades con las que los países son capaces de asimilar los cambios, se convierten en preguntas básicas con necesidad de respuesta. ; [eng] In recent years, the university system is undergoing several important changes. Many efforts have been devoted to widespread access to the system and, therefore, the recruitment of students trying to answer. for example, the demographic decline has become apparent. There are many perspectives from which to develop the effects of recent years to modify the system of higher education and, therefore, seems necessary to begin to assess changes not only from a political perspective, also from a scientific perspective, and especially since Social Economy. So, with adaptation to the European Higher Education Area differences between countries has become even more obvious, reason why the evaluation of the consequences of this process is raising the interest in institutions and also becomes the object of scientific attention. Measure and evaluate the impact that investment in each country, the differences between them: the pulling power of higher education, the different rates at which countries are able to assimilate the changes, they become questions basic need of response. The objective of this thesis is to analyze and model the European university spending from empirical field, so that it is possible to know and test the existence of differences between countries. To this end, mathematical and statistical models constructed with the aim of helping the group of university managers and policy makers in their task of programming and identify further needs in the regulation or on the contextual factors related to government budgets. In connection with the expenditure invested in the European university system, it is interesting to analyze both their performance as some of the inefficiencies such as absenteeism as a social fact. Making a theoretical and empirical approach to this event helps to know what the real causes and, thus, it is possible to establish proposals for change and improvement in the system to combat this outflow of resources invested and non productive.

Within this paper we discuss a numerical strategy to solve the elasticity problem upon unstructured and non conforming meshes, allowing all kinds of flat-faced elements (polygons in 2D and polyhedra in 3D). The core of the formulation relies on two numerical procedures 1) the Control Volume Function Approximation (CVFA), and 2) the polynomial interpolation in the neighborhood of the control volumes, which is used to solve the surface integrals resulting from applying the divergence theorem. By comparing the estimated stress against the analytical stress field of the well known test of an infinite plate with a hole, we show that this conservative approach is robust and accurate. ; The present investigation was sponsored by a CONACYT scolarship from the Mexican government and the TCAiNMaND project, an IRSES Marie Curie initiative under the European Union 7th Framework Programme. In addition, the authors want to express his gratitude to MSc. Ernesto Ortega, and to Drs. Rafel Herrera and Joaquin Peña for his insightful commments and discussions during the elaboration of this paper. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)

The present report aims to provide a comprehensive picture of the pandemic situation of COVID-19 in the EU countries, and to be able to foresee the situation in the next coming days. We employ an empirical model, verified with the evolution of the number of confirmed cases in previous countries where the epidemic is close to conclude, including all provinces of China. The model does not pretend to interpret the causes of the evolution of the cases but to permit the evaluation of the quality of control measures made in each state and a short-term prediction of tendencies. Note, however, that the effects of the measures' control that start on a given day are not observed until approximately 5-7 days later. The model and predictions are based on two parameters that are daily fitted to available data: a: the velocity at which spreading specific rate slows down; the higher the value, the better the control. K: the final number of expected cumulated cases, which cannot be evaluated at the initial stages because growth is still exponential. Next, we show a report with 8 graphs and a table with the short-term predictions for (1) European Union and its countries, (2) other countries, (3) Spain and its autonomous communities. We are currently adjusting the model to countries and regions with at least 4 days with more than 100 confirmed cases and a current load over 200 cases. The predicted period of a country depends on the number of datapoints over this 100 cases threshold: Group A: countries that have reported more than 100 cumulated cases for 10 consecutive days or more ¿ 3-5 days prediction; Group B: countries that have reported more than 100 cumulated cases for 7 to 9 consecutive days ¿ 2 days prediction; Group C: countries that have reported more than 100 cumulated cases for 4 to 6 days ¿ 1 d ay prediction. We have introduced a change in fittings, that are now weighted at some points. The whole methodology employed in the inform is explained in the last pages of this document. ; These reports are funded by the European Commission (DG CONNECT, LC-01485746) PJC and MC received funding from "la Caixa" Foundation (ID 100010434), under agreement LCF/PR/GN17/50300003; CP, DL, SA, MC, received funding from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and FEDER, with the project PGC2018-095456-B-I00 ; Postprint (published version)

In the teaching and learning process the lecturer occupies a very central position, because its role is very decisive. Lecturers must be able to translate and describe the content contained inthe curriculum, then transform the contents to the students through the process of teaching andlearning. Apart from that, improving and developing the quality of education is alwaysexpected. Therefore, the way of improvement and development is also a problem for us all.Neither government, society, nor individual should feel obliged to endure it. In learning,science and technology great role to promote a country. To be an advanced country, the nationmust be ingenious, clever and a lot of knowledge, both social science, natural science,introduction of probability and other sciences that are skilled. Without prejudice to any otherknowledge, the role of introductory probability is likely to be very important and needsserious handling. Introduction probability is a discipline that has a characteristic comparedwith the discipline of science. Therefore, learning and teaching activities required a method,given the different students of different levels of ability. Introduction probability arisesbecause of human thoughts associated with ideas, processes and reasoning. Learning on thematerial still uses expository methods. In this research, Realistic Matematics Education(RME) model with E-learning will be used.

Inferring homology relationships across genes in different species is a central task in comparative genomics. Therefore, a large number of resources and methods have been developed over the years. Some public databases include phylogenetic trees of homologous gene families which can be used to further differentiate homology relationships into orthology and paralogy. MetaPhOrs is a web server that integrates phylogenetic information from different sources to provide orthology and paralogy relationships based on a common phylogeny-based predictive algorithm and associated with a consistency-based confidence score. Here we describe the latest version of the web server which includes major new implementations and provides orthology and paralogy relationships derived from ∼8.2 million gene family trees—from 13 different source repositories across ∼4000 species with sequenced genomes. MetaPhOrs server is freely available, without registration, at http://orthology.phylomedb.org/ ; H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions [H2020-MSCA-IF-2017-793699 to U.C.]; Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness (MEIC) [PGC2018-099921-B-I00]; CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya; Catalan Research Agency (AGAUR) SGR423; European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme [ERC-2016-724173]; INB [PT17/0009/0023 - ISCIII-SGEFI/ERDF to T.G.]. Funding for open access charge: H2020Grant. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (author's final draft)

In this paper, a Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations solver, interFoam of OpenFOAM®, is validated for wave interactions with a dike, including a promenade and vertical wall, on a shallow foreshore. Such a coastal defence system is comprised of both an impermeable dike and a beach in front of it, forming the shallow foreshore depth at the dike toe. This case necessitates the simulation of several processes simultaneously: wave propagation, wave breaking over the beach slope, and wave interactions with the sea dike, consisting of wave overtopping, bore interactions on the promenade, and bore impacts on the dike-mounted vertical wall at the end of the promenade (storm wall or building). The validation is done using rare large-scale experimental data. Model performance and pattern statistics are employed to quantify the ability of the numerical model to reproduce the experimental data. In the evaluation method, a repeated test is used to estimate the experimental uncertainty. The solver interFoam is shown to generally have a very good model performance rating. A detailed analysis of the complex processes preceding the impacts on the vertical wall proves that a correct reproduction of the horizontal impact force and pressures is highly dependent on the accuracy of reproducing the bore interactions. ; This research was part of the CREST (Climate REsilient CoaST) project (http://www.crestproject.be/en), funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology, grant number 150028. The work described in this section was supported by the European Community's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme through the grant to HYDRALABPLUS, Contract no. 654110. C.A. acknowledges funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie, grant number 792370. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)

The Pont del Petroli is a dismissed pier in the area of Badalona, Spain, with high historical and social value. This structure was heavily damaged in January 2020 during the storm Gloria that hit southeastern Spain with remarkable strength. The reconstruction of the pier requires the assessment and characterization of the wave loading that determined the structural failure. Therefore, a state-of-the-art Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) code was employed herein as an aid for a planned experimental campaign that will be carried out at the Maritime Engineering Laboratory of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech (LIM/UPC). The numerical model is based on Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) and has been employed to simulate conditions very similar to those that manifested during the storm Gloria. The high computational cost for a full 3-D simulation has been alleviated by means of inlet boundary conditions, allowing wave generation very close to the structure. Numerical results reveal forces higher than the design loads of the pier, including both self-weight and accidental loads. This demonstrates that the main failure mechanism that led to severe structural damage of the pier during the storm is related to the exceeded lateral soil resistance. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this research represents the first known application of SPH open boundary conditions to model a real-world engineering case. ; This research was funded by European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No.: 792370. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)

This is a copy of the author 's final draft version of an article published in the journal Flow turbulence and combustion. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10494-017-9813-2 ; In the context of Large Eddy Simulation (LES) solely for the momentum transport equation there may be found several models for the turbulent subgrid fluxes. Furthermore, among those relying on the eddy diffusivity approach, each model may be based on different invariants of the strain rate. Besides, when heat and mass transfer are also considered, closures for the subgrid turbulent scalar fluxes are also required. Hence, different model combinations may be considered. Additionally, when other physical phenomena are included, such as combustion, further subgrid modelling is involved. Therefore, in the present study a LES simulation of a turbulent diffusion flame is performed and different combination of subgrid models are used in order to analyse the numerical effects in the simulations. Several models for the turbulent momentum subgrid fluxes are considered, both constant and dynamically evaluated Schmidt numbers. Regarding combustion, in the context of the Flamelet/Progress-Variable (FPV) model, with an assumed probability density function for the turbulent-chemistry interactions and four different closures for the subgrid mixture fraction variance are considered. Hence, a large number of model combinations are possible. The present study highlights the need for a consistent closure of subgrid effects. It is shown that, in the context of an FPV modelling, incorrect capture of subgrid mixing results in a flame lift-off for the studied flame (DLR A diffusion flame), even though experimentally an attached flame was reported. It is found that a consistent formulation is required, that is, all subgrid closures should become active in the same regions of the domain to avoid modelling inconsistencies. In contrast, when the classical flamelet approach is used, no lift-off is observed. The reason is that the classical flamelet includes only a limited subset of the possible flame states, i.e. only includes burning flamelets and extinguished flamelets for scalar dissipation rates past the extinction one. ; The present work has been financially supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of the Spanish government through project ENE2014-60577-R. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments which have led to an improved article. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (author's final draft)