Sentinel-1 Data Processing for Detecting and Monitoring of Ground Instabilities in the Rocky Coast of Central Asturias (N Spain)

The cliff coastline of the central region of Asturias (N Spain) is severely affected by terrain instabilities, causing considerable damage to properties and infrastructures every year. In this study, we applied the A-DInSAR technique based on Sentinel-1 imagery to map and monitor active slopes in an emblematic rocky area of the Asturian coast: the Peñas Cape. The A-DInSAR dataset analysis has been focused at regional and local scales. For the local scale assessment, six areas were selected based on previous work and the landslide database of the Principality of Asturias region (BAPA-Base de datos de Argayos del Principado de Asturias), created by the University of Oviedo. The processing of the data has been performed using two independent sets of processing tools: the PSIG software tools, a professional tool and, the GEP service, an unsupervised platform. The dataset consisted of 113 SAR IW-SLC images acquired by the Sentinel-1 A/B satellites between January 2018 and February 2020. LOS mean deformation velocity maps (mm year−1) and deformation time series (mm) were obtained by PSIG and GEP software, allowing coastal areas with landslide incidence and other terrain movements to be distinguished. Deformation motion has been estimated from PSIG VLOS rates to be from −17.1 to 37.4 mm year−1 and GEP VLOS rates from −23.0–38.3 mm year−1. According to deformation time series (mm), the minimum and maximum accumulated displacements are −68.5–78.8 and −48.8–77.0 mm by means of PSIG and GEP, respectively. These ground motions could be associated with coastal instabilities related to marine activity and coastal retreat, both at regional and local study scales. The main contributions of this work are: (1) the demonstration of the potential of A-DInSAR techniques to evaluate coastal instabilities in a coastal retreat context and (2) the comparison of the results provided by the two sets of tools, which allowed the ground motion to be assessed by using an unsupervised approach vs. a contrasted one (robust software). This study increases the knowledge about coastal instabilities and other ground movements along the rocky coast and cliffs of Central Asturias. As a conclusion for the future, we believe that this work highlights the evaluated methods as significant tools to support the management of coastal territories with jagged and rocky coastlines.

Evaluation of the quality of irrigation water using the Agriwater software

Since water is an increasingly limited resource, having methods for evaluating its quality is necessary to ensure an adequate and sustainableuse for human consumption, agriculture and industry. The aim of this work was to describe agriwater software for evaluating the quality of irrigation water. The software consisted of the following stages: a) development of a database capable of hosting all the information stored in the software; b) conversion of chemical units; c) indexes calculation; and d) evaluation of performance and efficiency in data processing. The Agriwater software converts measuring units of ions to mg L-1, meq L-1 and mmol L-1, calculating the following water quality indexes: sodium absorption ratio, effective salinity, potential salinity and chloride toxicity. The result is Agriwater software, a professional tool that can handle, analyze and evaluate thousands of data in seconds in an intuitive and simple way.

Race Brokers

This book examines how housing market professionals—including housing developers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and appraisers—construct twenty-first-century urban housing markets in ways that contribute to or undermine racial segregation. Drawing on extensive ethnographic and interview data collected in Houston, Texas, the book shows that housing market professionals play a key role in connecting people—or refusing to connect people—to housing resources and opportunities. They make these brokering decisions through reference to racist or equitable, people-affirming ideas. Typically, White housing market professionals draw from racist ideas that rank order people and neighborhoods according to their perceived economic and cultural housing market value, entwining racism with their housing market activities and interactions. Racialized housing market routines encourage this entwinement by naturalizing racism as a professional tool. The book tracks how professionals broker racism across the housing exchange process—from the home’s construction to real estate brokerage, mortgage lending, and home appraisals. In doing so, it shows that professionals make housing exchange a racialized process that contributes to neighborhood inequality and racial segregation. However, in contrast to the racialized status quo, a small number of housing market professionals—almost all of color—draw on equitable, people-affirming ideas and strategies to extend equal opportunities to individuals and neighborhoods, denaturalizing housing market racism. The book highlights the imperative to interrupt the racism that pervades White housing market professionals’ work, dismantle the racialized routines that underwrite such racism, and cultivate a fair housing market.

Development and Preliminary Validation of Social Media as an Educational and Professional Tool Student Perceptions Scale (SMEPT-SPS)

Although social media has an increasing presence both in university and sports settings, in the sports-management education context, no instruments (without being focused on one particular social-media platform, e.g., Facebook and Twitter) have been developed and validated that globally allow the academy to explore the perceptions of sports-management students concerning the educational and professional learning potential that these tools offer. Therefore, this research’s main objective is to develop and perform a preliminary validation of the social media as an educational and professional tool student perceptions scale (SMEPT-SPS). This study sample was composed of 90 Spanish undergraduate sports-management students (M = 22.56; SD = 3.55). A multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was performed to examine the psychometric properties of the SMEPT-SPS. The statistical analysis reflects the scale’s three-dimensional nature, explaining 67.87% of the variance and presents adequate psychometric properties (α = 0.87). Nevertheless, further validity and reliability analysis are required to confirm these initial findings with a larger and more representative sample. Considering the foregoing limitation, this research contributes to the literature by providing a new instrument, the SMEPT-SPS, that could help sports-management faculty expand the scope and understanding of social media’s educational and professional potential.

Who Will Score? A Machine Learning Approach to Supporting Football Team Building and Transfers

Background: the machine learning (ML) techniques have been implemented in numerous applications, including health-care, security, entertainment, and sports. In this article, we present how the ML can be used for building a professional football team and planning player transfers. Methods: in this research, we defined numerous parameters for player assessment, and three definitions of a successful transfer. We used the Random Forest, Naive Bayes, and AdaBoost algorithms in order to predict the player transfer success. We used realistic, publicly available data in order to train and test the classifiers. Results: in the article, we present numerous experiments; they differ in the weights of parameters, the successful transfer definitions, and other factors. We report promising results (accuracy = 0.82, precision = 0.84, recall = 0.82, and F1-score = 0.83). Conclusion: the presented research proves that machine learning can be helpful in professional football team building. The proposed algorithm will be developed in the future and it may be implemented as a professional tool for football talent scouts.

Медиакомпетентность как актуальное требование к подготовке современного педагога-психолога

The analysis of the current state of education in Russia and abroad shows that the activity of a teacher-psychologist increasingly includes the use of media as a professional tool, a means of achieving educational goals. In this regard, there is a need to form the media competence of a teacher-psychologist, as indicated by a number of researchers (A. A. Kuznetsova, S. A. Beshenkova, L. V. Galygina, S. Grigorieva, A. Lesnevsky, E. A. Rakitina, E. V. Lunev, K. Fomichev and others. According to many scientists, A. A. Andreeva, Yu. S. Branovsky, K. Kolina, A. Mogilev, E. A. Rakitina, E. Polat, O. K. Filatova et al.). Media education in the modern world ceases to be a stage at the beginning of independent life and becomes a continuous process that accompanies a person throughout life. In this article the necessity of formation of media competence of a teacher-psychologist, in regards to dynamic information and educational environment of constant occurrence in them of certain changes that require the psychologist to address new types of problems and therefore, inclusion in media competence new knowledge and skills.

USING THE TECHNIQUE OF "INFECTING" INTERNAL VISIONS (VISUALIZATION) AS A BASIS FOR SUCCESSFUL TEACHER COMMUNICATION

Human society is built on communication. Everyone can speak, but not everyone can successfully speak in front of an audience. In the process of public speaking, the speaker has to solve many important tasks simultaneously: to monitor his speech content, to maintain contact with the audience, to manage his body, voice and emotions. A real speaker must know the most advanced methods of constructing speech, be able to express their thoughts clearly and build them in an exact sequence, be convincing, be able to speak concisely, impressively, figuratively. He must be able to attract attention with his appearance, his natural abilities, and the way he speaks and holds himself. For teachers, communication is not only a need and necessity, but also a tool, the main professional tool, and communication skills, knowledge of the basic provisions of the theory of communication, along with special abilities, form the basis of professional competence. The performance should be the work of art that affects the feelings of listeners and their consciousness. To this end, the performances use the technique of "infection" with internal visions (visualization), which is understood as the ability to use vivid images in speech that make the subject of speech brighter, more tangible, and more understandable to convey the idea to the listener. Drawing pictures in the minds of listeners, creating bright and living images using descriptions, metaphors, comparisons, analogies, etc., allows you to make a much greater impact on the audience.

Barriers to the Application of the Nursing Process in the Regional Hospital Bamenda-Cameroon

The nursing process remains one of the unique pillars that confer nursing autonomy as a profession. However, implementation of the nursing process in the Regional Hospital Bamenda remains a challenge. This study set to assess barriers to the application of the nursing process at the Regional Hospital Bamenda-Cameroon. The specific objectives were to determine the demographic factors of nurses; identify the institutional factors and to find out the socio-cultural factors that hinder the implementation of the nursing process. A cross sectional study was carried out using a convenient sample of 65 nursing staff. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires with Pearson reliability coefficient of 0.87. The data were analysed using SPSS. The study revealed that 68% of the participants did not know the steps of the nursing process. Advancing age and longevity of nurses; rejection and lack of support of nursing process, non- recognition of those who make an effort, inadequate monitoring; inadequate resources; and nursing peers, family, religion and culture hindered implementation of the nursing process. The nursing process was viewed by all participants as time-consuming and others, 92% as tedious. Implementation of the nursing process was found to be negatively affected by demographic institutional and sociocultural factors. Within the perspectives of this study, the nursing care plan needs to be vulgarized as a professional tool in the hospital, client satisfaction with nursing services evaluated and an observational study carried out using patients’ records to improve on the objectivity of this study.