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Accurate electricity price forecasting (EPF) can provide a necessary basis for market decision making by power market participants to reduce the operating cost of the power system and ensure the system's stable operation. To address the characteristics of high frequency, strong nonlinearity, and high volatility of electricity prices, this paper proposes a short-term electricity price forecasting model based on a two-layer variational modal decomposition (VMD) technique, using the sparrow search algorithm (SSA) to optimize the long and short-term memory network (LSTM). The original electricity price sequence is decomposed into multiple modal components using VMD. Then, each piece is predicted separately using an SSA-optimized LSTM. For the element with the worst prediction accuracy, IMF-worst is decomposed for a second time using VMD to explore the price characteristics further. Finally, the prediction results of each modal component are reconstructed to obtain the final prediction results. To verify the validity and accuracy of the proposed model, this paper uses data from three electricity markets, Australia, Spain, and France, for validation analysis. The experimental results show that the proposed model has MAPE of 0.39%, 1.58%, and 0.95%, RMSE of 0.25, 0.9, and 0.3, and MAE of 0.19, 0.68, and 0.31 in three different cases, indicating that the proposed model can well handle the nonlinear and non-stationarity characteristics of the electricity price series and has superior forecasting performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased penetration of renewable energy sources (RESs) as an effective mechanism to reduce carbon emissions leads to an increased weather dependency for power and energy systems. This has created dynamic operation and degradation phenomena, which affect the lifetime estimation of the assets operated with RESs. For the reliable and efficient operation of RES it is crucial to monitor the health of its constituent components and feature selection is a crucial step for building robust and accurate health monitoring approaches. In this context, this paper presents a probabilistic feature selection approach, which probabilistically weights and selects features through a heuristic and iterative process for an improved asset lifetime estimation. Power transformers are key power grid assets and they are used to demonstrate the validity and impact of the proposed approach. The approach is tested on two different photovoltaic power plants operated in Spain and Australia. Results consistently show that the proposed feature-selection approach reduces the prediction error and consistently selects relevant features. The approach has been applied to transformer lifetime estimation, but it can be generally applied to assist in the lifetime estimation of other components operated in RESs. Part of the studies presented here as well as source codes are all open-source under the GitHub repository https://github.com/iramirezg/FeatureSelection. • Probabilistic feature selection approach for improved asset lifetime estimation. • Integration of environmental features for improved renewable-operated asset lifetime. • Systematic and robust feature weighting methodology. • Improved transformer lifetime estimation including sensor and environmental data. • Validated on two real photovoltaic power plant case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides three case studies of initiatives developed to improve educational opportunities in vulnerable urban communities. The cities in the three countries involved, Australia, the United States, and Spain, are different in many ways; however, each has persistent and entrenched inequalities between the educational opportunities and outcomes of historically marginalised students and their mainstream counterparts. Here, we focus on conceptualising and describing urban examples of poverty from three different countries, and reporting on programs and strategies aimed at enhancing the quality of teaching in schools in high-poverty areas. By providing and comparing the three cases, we aim to contribute to broader understandings of poverty in three locations and how teachers and schools in high-poverty urban settings can re-think their practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daily mobility varies by gender and is likely related to contextual factors including the gender division of employment and family work, options for modes of transport, and support for work-family reconciliation. This paper compares travel time patterns of men and women using nationally representative time-diary data from Australia, the UK, Spain and Finland (n = 14,176). Despite similarities in men and women's total travel time within countries, results show substantial gender variation in the purpose of daily travel, the transport mode used, who is present, and the way parents in couple-headed households share travel with and for children in relative terms. The extent of the gender gaps vary cross-nationally in ways consistent with prevalent patterns in the gendered division of labour and social parenting norms, but relative gaps in child-serving travel were universal, attesting to the ubiquity of gendered mobility constraints in households with children. • Daily mobility varies cross-nationally by gender in purpose, mode and company. • Gendered mobility reflects national patterns of gendered division of labour. • Gendered mobility reflects national patterns of parenting norms and social trust. • Relative gender gaps in parents' travel with and for children are universal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims To report a systematic review of the psychometric properties of self-report instruments to identify the symptoms of anxiety in pregnancy to help clinicians and researchers select the most suitable instrument. Background Excessive anxiety in pregnancy is associated with adverse birth outcomes, developmental and behavioural problems in infants and postnatal depression. Despite recommendations for routine psychological assessment in pregnancy, the optimal methods to identify anxiety in pregnancy have not been confirmed. Design Psychometric systematic review. Data sources A systematic literature search of the multiple databases (1990-September 2014). Review methods Identification of self-report instruments to measure anxiety in pregnancy using COSMIN guidelines to assess studies reporting a psychometric evaluation of validity and reliability. Results Thirty-two studies were included. Studies took place in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, Spain and the Netherlands. Seventeen different instruments were identified. Measures of validity were reported in 19 papers and reliability in 16. The overall quality of the papers was rated as fair to excellent using the COSMIN checklist. Only one paper scored excellent in more than one category. Conclusion Many instruments have been adapted for use in different populations to those for which they were designed. The State Trait Anxiety Inventory, Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale have been tested more frequently than other instruments, yet require further assessment to confirm their value for use in pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a thematic framework that simplifies and explains the complexity of tourist encounters with nature. The research combines qualitative data, derived from questionnaire surveys, in-depth interviews, field journals and personal observations, of wildlife encounters in Spain and Mexico and encounters with tropical forest in Australia. The data reveal that embodied tourists encounter nature in a multisensory manner, although they privilege visual perceptions of the natural world. There are clear differences in the emotional significance of encounters, with visitors negotiating individual yet diverse relations with their surrounding environment, mediated byin situsocial interactions. Wildlife tourists often perform ritualised roles, directed by tour guides, causing some to question the collective performances of prescribed mobilities. Rainforest tourists, by contrast, are more unbounded in their performances. It is suggested that visitors on guided tours should be given time to experience the wonders of the environment at their own pace, facilitating the achievement of ‘higher order’ needs. The theoretical framework presented in the paper facilitates an exploration of the diversity of connections between people and nature and the myriad ways in which such relationships are formed, interpreted and afforded relevance. The framework is not definitive, but context-specific, serving to inform future understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The projects presented in this paper address two issues. The first issue is about the act of interactivism of liberating the projector, and the subsequent design considerations of taking a certain technology out of its intended context, and the issue of breaking out of the 'frame'. The second issue is about how video material through personal projection becomes a human output modality, potentially enabling a new and exciting form of audiovisual expression. This restores the balance of the enormous amount of images (still and moving) we take from out environment, but rarely give back. To address this asymmetry, the Videowalker project has been developed, as an instrument and an idea. It aims to address the urban space and the natural environment with audiovisual material, responding and reflecting on the context. Through the project the trend of portable projectors is anticipated, with the explicit aim to investigate how this technology can be used as an expressive human output modality. This means that a strong emphasis in the development and design processes is put on the interface as well as the audience experience. The paper describes the background of the project and its approaches, and experiences and reflections on a range of instantiations/performances with the instrument in Spain, The Netherlands and Australia since 2003. The technology of the set-up is described in enough detail to enable others to replicate the system. Related projects are described and compared, and the notion of Videowalk is placed in an artistic historic context. From the experiments and events a number of issues have come up, and identified as the most important design parameters to research were the shape of the projection and the nature of the audiovisual content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some previous studies have shown that the availability of orthographic information leads to positive effects for second language (L2) phonology, while others document negative effects. In this paper, we examine the role of orthography on novel spoken-word learning by comparing word pairs that differed in most or all of their segments (nonminimal pairs) and those that only differed in one phoneme (minimal pairs) that was considered easy or difficult to discriminate. We tested the performance of learners whose native languages have transparent orthographies as well as learners with opaque orthographies. Our findings show that regardless of linguistic background and native orthographic system, availability of orthographic information during word learning did not have an effect on nonminimal pairs or perceptually easy minimal pairs. However, it had a positive effect on two minimal pairs that had the highest accuracy among the seven perceptually difficult ones, indicating that orthography only helped contrasts that were relatively easy to discriminate. The implications of these findings for L2 teaching and for future directions within L2 phonology are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transfer of successful water market governance between international settings is increasingly attractive to policy makers under globalization. This paper tests lesson-drawing approaches to water market governance transfers using data from Spain and the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Spain is the blueprint country for water market adoption in Europe, while Australia is often presented as a world leader in innovative water market arrangements. A preliminary comparative analysis framework linking water market governance principles to observed institutional arrangements and outcomes is provided. Finally, some key lessons, problems and policy transfer potential to stimulate and enhance Spanish water markets from lesson-drawing approaches are drawn, with an emphasis on adaptive capacity as an institutional performance metric. We find that Spain's current water governance institutions and arrangements offer a solid platform for marketing reform, where some key adaptive capacity constraints are able to be addressed. The lessons drawn from this study highlight those areas of change which, while challenging, can be achieved in our view. • Lesson drawing methods offer a novel way to assess adaptive capacity in policy settings. • Australia's water markets provide a case study for comparing Spain's readiness for water market adoption. • Current institutional strengths and weaknesses are identified via the analysis. • Future adaptive capacity evaluation offers useful insights for water governors and policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rickettsia typhi is an intracellular bacteria who causes murine typhus. His importance is reflected in the high frequency founding specific antibodies against R. typhi in several worldwide seroepidemiological studies, the seroprevalence ranging between 3-36%. Natural reservoirs of Rickettsia typhi are rats (some species belonging the Rattus Genus) and fleas (Xenopsylla cheopis) are his vector. This infection is associated with overcrowding, pollution and poor hygiene. Typically presents fever, headache, rash on trunk and extremities, in some cases may occur organ-specific complications, affecting liver, kidney, lung or brain. Initially the disease is very similar to other diseases, is very common to confuse the murine typhus with Dengue fever, therefore, ignorance of the disease is a factor related to complications or non-specific treatments for the resolution of this infection. This paper presents the most relevant information to consider about the rickettsiosis caused by Rickettsia typhi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a comparative framework for biotechnology policy analysis based on work by Paarlberg, Haga and Willard, and Isaac and applies this framework to help understand the evolution and differences in the regulatory regimes related to agri-food genomic innovations found in six countries: Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. Applying this framework to the six cases shows that these governments have fostered different types of regulatory regimes over the last quarter century that are closely connected with the manner in which governments have pursued either promotional or precautionary orientations towards new technologies; and second whether regulatory policy-making has been driven by state or public actors and interests. The implications of these findings for the study of biotechnology, and especially genomics-related matters, regulation and policy-making are then discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While some forms of public-private partnerships are a feature of hospital construction and operation in all countries with mixed economies, there is increasing interest in a model in which a public authority contracts with a private company to design, build and operate an entire hospital. Drawing on the experience of countries such as Australia, Spain, and the United Kingdom, this paper reviews the experience with variants of this model. Although experience is still very limited and rigorous evaluations lacking, four issues have emerged: cost, quality, flexibility and complexity. New facilities have, in general, been more expensive than they would have been if procured using traditional methods. Compared with the traditional system, new facilities are more likely to be built on time and within budget, but this seems often to be at the expense of compromises on quality. The need to minimize the risk to the parties means that it is very difficult to "future-proof" facilities in a rapidly changing world. Finally, such projects are extremely, and in some cases prohibitively, complex. While it is premature to say whether the problems experienced relate to the underlying model or to their implementation, it does seem that a public-private partnership further complicates the already difficult task of building and operating a hospital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim Rainfall reliability has been neglected as a determinant of plant trait convergence and divergence in mediterranean-climate ecosystems. This paper reports on patterns of rainfall reliability — quantified as interannual variation in monthly and seasonal rainfall, and as the frequency of individual events in terms of their size, duration and intensity — for four fire-prone mediterranean-climate ecosystems. Location The four mediterranean-climate regions of the world with fire-prone ecosystems, namely SW Cape (South Africa), SW Australia, California and the Mediterranean Basin (Andalusia, Spain). Methods Using long-term monthly rainfall data from stations dispersed across the four regions, we computed monthly means and interannual variation for each month of the year — the latter quantified as the coefficient of variation (CV) — and divided these into winter and summer seasons. We also computed the mean number of rainfall events, the mean frequency in various categories of event duration (days), the amount of rainfall per event (mm) and the rainfall intensity per event (mm/day) per year for winter and summer seasons for a subset of the rainfall stations. Results The fraction of rain falling in summer was lowest in California (5%) and similarly low ( c. 25%) in the other three regions. The hierarchy of values of coefficient of variation (CV) of monthly rainfall during the winter period was as follows: California > Andalusia >> SW Cape > SW Australia; results for summer were: California > > Andalusia >> SW Australia ∼ SW Cape. SW Australian sites experienced the greatest frequency of short, small and low-intensity rainfall events in both seasons; patterns in the SW Cape were intermediate between Australia and the two northern hemisphere sites which both received fewer, larger and more intense events. Overall, the two southern hemisphere regions (SW Australia and the SW Cape) had significantly more reliable regimes than the two northern hemisphere ones (Mediterranean Basin and California). Main conclusions These differences in rainfall reliability regimes may provide a novel perspective on the distribution of certain plant life-history traits in mediterranean-climate ecosystems. Less reliable regimes would select for germination and seedling survival traits that enable persistence of genets in the face of uncertain moisture conditions during the winter and spring establishment phase. Study systems that accommodate for phylogenetic constraints, namely invasive species derived from mediterranean-climate ecosystems, as well as shared lineages, provide good opportunities to develop and test hypotheses on the implication of different rainfall reliability regimes. One of the novel implications of this study is that the distinctive trait of assemblages in the southern hemisphere regions may be a consequence not so much of their shared nutrient-poor soils as of their similarly reliable rainfall regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several methods used to obtain beach profiles, the simplest expression of a beach. This paper describes a method that requires only one person to measure beach profiles and compares its characteristics with other existent techniques. The method was tested at several locations, with different environmental conditions: Coogee Beach, NSW. Australia, which is a small, embayed beach: Arealonga Beach. Galiza, NW of Spain, which is a large embayed beach with a wide inter tidal area; and A F´brica Road, a path laid with asphalt located near Arealonga Beach. Only items of equipment are necessary, a horizontal pole joined at one end to a vertical pole at a ninety-degree angle, and a standing calibrated pole. Using levels the horizontal pole is adjusted and the height is recorded at the unattached end with the standing pole. The sub aerial profile can be completed with the repetition of the sequence. A comparisonof this method in eleven different profiles with other techniques shows its viability, resulting in a precision of 99.76% with regards to electronic apparatus (Total Station or Theodolite). The method has advantages as only one person is required to conduct beach profiles, surveys can be conducted at night or in the rain, it is not necessary to see the horizon and the apparatus is easy to transport and of low cost. The main disadvantage is that a mistake can be cumulative, a problem that is shared with other non- electronic methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]