Papers by Alejandro Garcia
Energies
The role of the energy industry has always been central for one reason or another, being environm... more The role of the energy industry has always been central for one reason or another, being environmentalism the main motive in the last two decades. Therefore, attention and research have been directed in this sense. However, human resources—or human capital—have remained understudied, especially concerning the salaries received. Thus, this study is disruptive as it explored the factors that influence employee remuneration in the energy subsector, using Spain as a case study. For this, the PLS-SEM (Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling) path modelling methodology was used, executing a traditional PLS analysis, bootstrapping and, finally, IPMA (Importance-Performance Analysis). Solid and significant relationships were found among labour conditions, human capital, market and wages, with the relationships between human capital and wages and between human capital and labour conditions being especially relevant. Besides, through IPMA, a series of considerations was made regar...
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research
Arguments in argumentation systems cannot always be considered as standalone entities, requiring ... more Arguments in argumentation systems cannot always be considered as standalone entities, requiring the consideration of the pieces of evidence they rely on. This evidence might have to be retrieved from external sources such as databases or the web, and each attempt to retrieve a piece of evidence comes with an associated cost. Moreover, a piece of evidence may be available in a given scenario but not in others, and this is not known beforehand. As a result, the collection of active arguments (whose entire set of evidence is available) that can be used by the argumentation machinery of the system may vary from one scenario to another. In this work, we consider an Argumentation Framework with Fallible Evidence that accounts for these issues, and propose a heuristic measure used as part of the acceptability calculus (specifically, for building pruned dialectical trees) with the aim of minimizing the evidence retrieval cost of the arguments involved in the reasoning process. We provide a...
3076 – Engineering of a Standardized Human Hematopoietic Niche Using Dedicated Mesenchymal Lines and a 3D-PRINTED Bioreactor System
Experimental Hematology
Engineering human mini-bones for the standardized modeling of healthy hematopoiesis, leukemia, and solid tumor metastasis
Science Translational Medicine
The bone marrow microenvironment provides indispensable factors to sustain blood production throu... more The bone marrow microenvironment provides indispensable factors to sustain blood production throughout life. It is also a hotspot for the progression of hematologic disorders and the most frequent site of solid tumor metastasis. Preclinical research relies on xenograft mouse models, but these models preclude the human-specific functional interactions of stem cells with their bone marrow microenvironment. Instead, human mesenchymal cells can be exploited for the in vivo engineering of humanized niches, which confer robust engraftment of human healthy and malignant blood samples. However, mesenchymal cells are associated with major reproducibility issues in tissue formation. Here, we report the fast and standardized generation of human mini-bones by a custom-designed human mesenchymal cell line. These resulting humanized ossicles (hOss) consist of fully mature bone and bone marrow structures hosting a human mesenchymal niche with retained stem cell properties. As compared to mouse bon...
EGA Revista de Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica
La hegemonía y la proliferación de las tecnologías digitales ha producido la emergencia de una re... more La hegemonía y la proliferación de las tecnologías digitales ha producido la emergencia de una realidad compleja donde cohabitan lo físico y lo digital. En este contexto la cartografía se presenta como un proceso de comunicación de datos vinculados al territorio, visualizados en las interfaces de los dispositivos digitales de los habitantes. El artículo explora cómo a través de la nueva relación humano-máquina emergen nuevas prácticas cartográficas interactivas a través de las cuales el usuario aporta una capa informacional sobre la descripción territorial inicial cuyas dinámicas operativas le permiten compartirla con otros usuarios conectados. En un estadio más avanzado, y mediante la retroalimentación del mensaje cartográfico, la cartografía digital se presenta como una herramienta táctica para la interacción del habitante con el territorio, renovando los vínculos que los unen entre sí y con el resto de la multitud conectada.
Technological innovation and productivity across Spanish regions
The Annals of Regional Science, 2021
This article used a CDM three-stage structural model based on data from the Spanish technological... more This article used a CDM three-stage structural model based on data from the Spanish technological innovation panel to analyse the differential impact of technological innovation on labour productivity in the three largest Spanish regions and the Spanish economy as a whole. Although a considerable number of studies have used national data to analyse this relationship, very few studies have done so using microdata at the regional level. The results suggest that in Andalusia and Madrid increases in labour productivity were only associated with the increased probability of product innovation, whereas in Catalonia they were only associated with process innovation. These results suggest a lack of convergence in business strategies to improve labour productivity in these regions. Therefore, business investment in R&D and public institution funding decisions on support for technological innovation should be aimed at improving these less effective innovation strategies for increasing labour productivity.
DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals - DOAJ, Jul 1, 2007
Multi-scale approach to reconstruct a bioartificial system of system: the example of the bone-tendon-muscle continuum
2018 13th Annual Conference on System of Systems Engineering (SoSE), 2018
Biomimetic approaches in tissue engineering consist in collecting knowledge for native tissues or... more Biomimetic approaches in tissue engineering consist in collecting knowledge for native tissues or organs to propose novel solutions to reconstruct them in vitro. As an example, the musculo-skeletal continuum can be described using a system of system vision. An engineered musculo-skeletal tissue can thus be analyzed as a technological system of system, combining different types of cells and materials, whose properties at different scales are interdependent and affected by changes observed in the different component systems. We propose here to reconstruct the major components, having in mind the objective of their further integration in the final product. The final biohybrid bone-tendon-muscle continuum could thus be very useful as organ substitute, but also as relevant in vitro model to investigate scientific questions such as tissue healing or aging.
The research line reported here involves developing an argumentation-based formalism that an agen... more The research line reported here involves developing an argumentation-based formalism that an agent could use in constructing plans. The argumentation formalism will be combined with well known planning tecniques producing a novel way of constructing a plan. Below, we wil sketch the formalism and introduce some clarifying examples. We assume that the agent has certain knowledge about the world represented by a consistent set of facts Φ and a set of defeasible rules ∆. This knowledge base, represented by K=(Φ,∆), is in fact a restricted Defeasible Logic Program. We will freely use the results already obtained for such argumentation-based extension of logic programming called DeLP [1]. The agent will also have a set of actions Γ that will be used for constructing the plan. Each action A will consist of an ordered triplet 〈X, P, C〉, where X is a consistent set of literals representing consequences of executing A, P is a set of literals representing preconditions for A, and C is a set of...
International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2021
The development of new, viable, and functional engineered tissue is a complex and challenging tas... more The development of new, viable, and functional engineered tissue is a complex and challenging task. Skeletal muscle constructs have specific requirements as cells are sensitive to the stiffness, geometry of the materials, and biological micro-environment. The aim of this study was thus to design and characterize a multi-scale scaffold and to evaluate it regarding the differentiation process of C2C12 skeletal myoblasts. The significance of the work lies in the microfabrication of lines of polyethylene glycol, on poly(ε-caprolactone) nanofiber sheets obtained using the electrospinning process, coated or not with gold nanoparticles to act as a potential substrate for electrical stimulation. The differentiation of C2C12 cells was studied over a period of seven days and quantified through both expression of specific genes, and analysis of the myotubes’ alignment and length using confocal microscopy. We demonstrated that our multiscale bio-construct presented tunable mechanical properties...
Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 2021
To understand the effect of mechanical stimulation on cell response, bone marrow stromal 16 cells... more To understand the effect of mechanical stimulation on cell response, bone marrow stromal 16 cells were cultured on electrospun scaffolds under two distinct mechanical conditions (static 17 and dynamic). Comparison between initial and final cell construct mechanical and biological 18 properties were conducted over 14 days for both culturing conditions. As a result, 19 mechanically stimulated constructs, in contrast to their static counterparts, showed evident 20 mechanical-induced cell orientation, a high amount of aligned collagen along with an 21 abundance of tenomodulin differentiation phenotype. Cell orientation and high collagen 22 production and orientation lead to enhanced storage modulus observed under dynamic 23 stimulation. The increase in tenomodulin under dynamic conditions provided clues on the 24 importance of mechanical stimulation to induce tendon-like phenotype production. 25 Altogether, mechanical stimulation lead to (i) morphological orientation were static cultured 26 constructs presents random morphology, (ii) more pronounced elastic behavior with a 27 limited viscous contribution in the global mechanical response. Such a correlation could help 28 in further studies to use mechanical stimulation as chemical-free cell guidance in tissue 29 engineering development.
Journal of Surgical Case Reports, 2021
Congenital diaphragmatic hernias rarely present after 2 months of age and are typically diagnosed... more Congenital diaphragmatic hernias rarely present after 2 months of age and are typically diagnosed in the perinatal period. Moderate to severe diaphragmatic hernias present with respiratory symptoms, while late-onset hernias have a more varied presentation, depending on the age and content of the hernia. Very rarely, such hernias are found on incidental imaging, in which surgical repair is frequently recommended. A young girl with Loeys-Dietz syndrome and prior abdominal surgeries presents with 1-year history of increasingly severe, intermittent, abdominal and left shoulder pain. Prior imaging incidentally revealed a left diaphragmatic hernia with omentum protruding into the thoracic cavity. This was managed expectantly due to her other medical and surgical issues. Serial imaging revealed that the herniated omentum was increasing in size and symptoms began to develop. An uncomplicated primary thoracoscopic repair was performed. We report the first case of a congenital diaphragmatic h...
Based on information provided by two consecutive samples of the four-year version of the Spanish ... more Based on information provided by two consecutive samples of the four-year version of the Spanish Wage Structure Survey (WSS), in this paper we estimate, from a gender perspective, the returns to human capital in the Spanish hospitality industry. For this purpose has been estimated an expanded version of the Mincerian wage equation. This equation includes, in addition of the variables that represents the human capital following the criteria of Mincer (1974), a set of variables that attempt to measure the effects on wages of workers' personal characteristics and those characteristic related with the occupation. The descriptive analysis of the samples shows that both in the hospitality sector just as in the whole of private services of the Spanish economy, which have been utilised for comparing, the women's gross hourly wages are on average lower than the men's, but nevertheless the average years of schooling completed by workers in both samples are not significantly differ...
La variación de la productividad en el sector trans portes de la economía española ha sido amplia... more La variación de la productividad en el sector trans portes de la economía española ha sido ampliamente estudiado en los últimos años, pero la introducción de medidas ecoinnovadoras en este sector que se traduzcan en m ejoras de la productividad laboral no ha tenido tanta atención por parte de los investiga dores de este campo. En este documento se ha analizado, mediante la utilización de un mode lo estructural CDM que relaciona las inversiones en I+D, la generación de innovación y l a productividad, las consecuencias sobre la productividad laboral de las empresas del sector transportes de la introducción de medidas innovadoras conducentes a la reducción d el impacto medioambiental de la actividad que desarrollan y de otros factores utili zados en la literatura sobre innovación tecnológica. Para alcanzar este objetivo, se ha uti lizado la base de datos elaborada conjuntamente por el Instituto Nacional de Estadíst ica de España (INE) y por la Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Te...
affect labor productivity and therefore business performance in this sector may have affected the... more affect labor productivity and therefore business performance in this sector may have affected the productivity in a introducing as explicative variable an indicator of good environmental practices. Specifically, we start with the following production function: different way when the economic crisis in Spain became deeper. One such factor is the eco-innovation. In previous works, the authors of this paper have used a variable that Y = AKαLβeyenv (1)
4. CONCLUSIONS Respect for the environment could be a differentiating attribute over competitors ... more 4. CONCLUSIONS Respect for the environment could be a differentiating attribute over competitors and will lead to competitive advantages. Some authors highlight the fact that, providing the environmental setting is valued by clients, it becomes a differentiating output. Other authors consider environmental compliance as an element for improving the quality of the product and an attribute of the service provided by firms that has economic value for the consumer. Currently, environmental responsibility is having an effect on the behaviour of consumers when making purchasing decisions, influencing their reasons for travelling and the final choice of destination and service provider. In this paper we analyze whether environmental variables have an influence in the willingness-to-pay (WTP) of the tourist. Hedonic pricing methodology have been using in many fields of economics for analysing heterogeneous goods and services and, in particular, in the tourism sector and its subsectors, whi...
International Journal of Environmental Research, 2014
Recent studies have shown that firms that have adopted environmental standards and thosethat have... more Recent studies have shown that firms that have adopted environmental standards and thosethat have obtained official quality certifications achieve higher labour productivity than firms that have notdone so. Unlike previous studies, this paper analyzes the combined effect of implementing environmentalgood practices and obtaining quality certifications on apparent labour productivity using a sample of 106hotels in Andalusia (Spain). To this end, a descriptive analysis and an econometric estimation of a productionfunction were conducted based on data obtained from the Quality, Productivity and Competitiveness in theHospitality Industry for Andalusia project. We applied a standard Cobb-Douglas production function to thisdata, and extended the function by introducing an indicator of the implementation of good environmentalpractice by hotels and four different types of quality certifications as additional explanatory variables. Theeconometric results indicate that labour productivity incr...
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Papers by Alejandro Garcia