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A set of outreach activities implemented by the College of Engineering of the Public University of Navarra, Spain, is described. They represent different initiatives aimed to improve recruitment of young engineers in the difficult context of declining interest in engineering and the educational changes Europe is facing nowadays. The initiatives include didactic materials and activities specifically targeted to high schools and other events aimed to increase awareness about the relevance of science and engineering in the society. During the three years the outreach program has been applied, an increase in the number of engineering students of 12.5% has been experienced, which is in contrast to the decrease of 1.6% in the number of new university students during the same period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which aims to evaluate the professional abilities of an engineer who works as an information technology (IT) professional in Spain, and define the professional characteristics that she or she should possess. A panel of experts was interviewed to evaluate and ranked the abilities for each occupational profiles grouped in Mintzber categories. It concludes that workers in this sector should possess abilities and skills consistent with flexibility and innovation.

The increasing necessity of engineers capable of handling the problems of the industry and able to face the technical challenges they will encounter in their professional career is boosting the teaching methods based on projects and real applications. The Center of Technological Innovation in Static Converters and Drives, Technical University of Catalonia (CITCEA-UPC) group, Barcelona, Spain, has introduced such learning methods applied to the automation field in a course taught for the electrical engineering degree and in some postgraduate workshops, making the laboratory platforms available through the Internet in order to allow the use of such practices in e-learning-based courses. The learning method is based on a flexible manufacturing ceil, resulting from the collaboration between the CITCEA-UPC and Schneider Electric and its Training Center. The problem proposed to the students is the automation of such a cell with commercial programmable logic controllers (PLCs). The experience has proved to be positive, and the students have valued it accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine price by season and by year in 14 deregulated markets, by looking at diurnal price patterns and price volatility. Power price volatility is measured by price velocity, the daily average of the absolute value of price change per hour, which is broken into a component expected from the average diurnal pattern, and an unexpected component. Deregulated markets can be categorized into three groups: stable markets, markets that experienced one bad period or season of high price excursion, and chaotic markets. Britain, Spain and Scandinavia show consistent price patterns and low unexpected price velocity; a thoughtful consumer could reasonably implement demand side management (DSM) by shaping consumption patterns to reflect price. California, New Zealand and Alberta are examples of markets that had a period of very high price excursion; we discuss factors affecting public reaction to this. Australian power markets have inconsistent price patterns from season to season and year to year, and very high unexpected price velocity. Planned DSM in these markets would be very difficult. We offer four policy considerations for markets considering deregulation in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the impact of high wind power penetration on the planning and operation of the Spanish power system. Information on the plans of several countries in Europe to install wind energy farms; Amount of power peak of the Spanish power system; Electrical regions of the Spanish system.

Investigates the integrated with automatic generation control of a wind farm with variable speed wind turbines in Spain. Components of the G47/660 wind turbines; Electrical layout of the turbine; Control of active and reactive power at the wind farm substation.

Investigates the complexity of geographical information in Sevilla, south of Spain. Characteristic of boundaries between different phenomena; Consequences of unrealistic assumptions; Comparison of the result with obtained information from the ERDAS ISODATA classification program.

Presents a preliminary study of some optical properties of atmospheric aerosols over the area of Valencia, Spain. Irradiance measurements obtained using three Li-cor 1800 spectroradiometers; Spectral aerosol optical thickness (AOT); Parameterization of the AOT Angstrom coefficients; Aerosol size distribution.

Presents some results of a measurement campaign in the service area of the digital terrestrial television experimental network of Madrid, Spain. Degradation suffered by analog PAl-G signals in the presence of co-channel and adjacent channel digital emissions; Protection ratios between analogue and digital received power levels.

Presents the results of a field measurement campaign at the experimental COFDM 8K digital terrestrial television network by the partners of the VIDITER project in Spain. Field strength spatial variation distribution inside small coverage areas; Measurement campaign targets.

Describes a method for analyzing the performance of grounding systems. Equivalent circuit of the grounding system; Resistances, inductances and conductances; Comparison with other evaluation methods; Analysis of the Balaidos Substation in Spain.

The article offers information on the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects of the National Strategic Consortia for Technical Research (CENIT) in Spain, which Telefonica de Espana SA participates. It relates that the projects include the automotive networking, ambient intelligence for electronic-health, and augmented telepresence and discusses the objectives of the individual projects. It also adds that the projects are designed for the development of technological innovations that can be used for the development of new products, services or processes. Moreover, it cites that the Spanish CENIT program aims to nurture the collaboration among private, public and research sectors and mobilizing very huge budgets on single projects.

The article presents a calendar of events related to information technology. The "8th International Conference on e-Health Networking, Applications, and Services" is scheduled on August 17-19, 2006 in New Delhi, India. The "2nd International Workshop on Satellite and Space Communications" is scheduled on September 14-15, 2006 in Spain. The "International Conference on Information Technology" is scheduled on October 16-19, 2006 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Information about several topics discussed at the ICT Mobile Summit held on June 9-12, 2009 in Santander, Spain is presented. Topics include Internet issues, fixed communications, and mobile application and software space. Moreover, the meeting featured 450 experts representing a broad spectrum of the research community, including Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Focuses on heterogeneous engineering. Creation of dynamic networks comprised of actors possessing many different attributes, interest and goals; Conference on the Hydrogen Economy, held in Washington D.C., Information on the 2005 International Conference on Robotics and Automation, sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, held in April 2005 in Barcelona, Spain; Symposium on machine ethics with the American Association for Artificial Intelligence in 2005.

The International Campus of Excellence (ICE) program, promoted by the Ministry of Education of the Spanish Government, is working to improve the quality and excellence of the Spanish universities and their environments. Similar programs have been carried out in France (with the Op?ration Campus program) and Germany (with the Exzellenzinitiative program). All of them are based on additional funding for the best universities, with the intention of achieving excellence and more international presence. Another common characteristic of the three previous programs is that they consider reinforcing research activities, by supporting Ph.D. schools and research institutions, the key to achieving the proposed objectives. On the other hand, other multinational organizations, like the European Commission, have also promoted similar initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study aims to characterize and model the rain fields for propagation studies from weather radar images of the northwest coast of Spain. The study includes the modeling of these images according to two well-known rain-cell models, EXCELL and HYCELL. For this analysis, a procedure for detecting rain field-s and an algorithm for identifying rain cells within the images is presented. This work is part of an ongoing activity, trying to develop dynamic space-time models of rain fields for simulating rain-induced effects on millimeter-wave communication systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]