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The Covid-19 pandemic has changed much of our vision of the world. It has brought about transformations which demand for new worldviews. This book is a compilation of 40 articles published during the period 2019-21. They are grouped in six thematic sections which have experienced deeps impacts produced by the pandemic in our daily life: (1) Fighting the Maligned Covid-19; (2) Digitalization, Artificial Intelligence, Robotization; (3) Life-styles, Bureaucracy and the Online World; (4) Technological Lords and Industry 4.0; (5) Individual Agency and Social Life; and (6) Recovery and Global Readaptation in a Climate of Uncertainty. The authors have been very keen to ponder how the ongoing robotization is changing our societies, and how our robotized democracies can promote a fairer and equal society. Some particular cases and instances relate to situations in Spain, the EU and the Western Hemisphere. In the main, our analyses cut-cross global areas of examination and inquiry. The overall purpose of this book is to encourage readers to think about life changes and to stimulate their assessment of the processes affecting the pandemic world and the prospects for its indeterminate future. ; Peer reviewed

La pandemia de Covid-19 ha cambiado gran parte de nuestra visión del mundo. Ha provocado transformaciones que exigen nuevos enfoques. Este libro es una recopilación de 40 artículos publicados durante el período 2019-21. Se agrupan en seis secciones temáticas que han experimentado profundos impactos producidos por la pandemia en nuestra vida cotidiana: (1) Combatiendo al maligno Covid-19; (2) Digitalización, Inteligencia Artificial, Robotización; (3) Estilos de vida, burocracia y mundo en línea; (4) Señores Tecnológicos e Industria 4.0; (5) Albedrío individual y vida social; y (6) Recuperación y readaptación global en un clima de incertidumbre. Los autores se han interesado en reflexionar sobre cómo la robotización en curso está cambiando nuestras sociedades y cómo nuestras democracias robotizadas pueden promover una sociedad más justa e igualitaria. Algunos casos e instancias particulares se refieren a situaciones en España, la UE y el Hemisferio Occidental. En general, nuestros análisis son transversales a áreas globales de examen e investigación. El propósito general de este libro es alentar a los lectores a pensar en los cambios de vida en curso y a estimular su valoración de los procesos que afectan al mundo pandémico y las perspectivas de su futuro indeterminado. ; Peer reviewed

[EN] Robotization implies long-term structural changes with far reaching consequences for democracy. This fourth technological revolution (Industry 4.0) has strengthened the autonomy of corporations and has empowered technostructure. Automation and the extensive use of internet are intensifying the progressive applications of the artificial intelligence (AI) and are set to further encourage productive maximization. Eventually, these ongoing processes will make superfluous many of the existing jobs. Shall we live a democratic future as we have known it until now? Will it be different because of the technological changes under way? What repercussions will they have for human relations? [IT] Stiamo vivendo la progressiva robotizzazione delle democrazie occidentali, che annuncia cambiamenti profondi e strutturali di largo raggio. Questa quarta rivoluzione tecnologica, guidata dalla generalizzazione di Internet e dall'automazione, intensificherà le applicazioni progressive dell'intelligenza artificiale e la successiva massimizzazione produttiva. Alla fine, i processi in corso renderanno superfluo il bisogno di gran parte del lavoro salariato. Il volume discute di come la robotizzazione e l'intelligenza artificiale influenzeranno i processi neo–feudali negli Stati Uniti e l'inevitabilità del reddito di cittadinanza nel caso dell'Unione Europea. ; Peer reviewed

Nuestras democracias, apenas superada la mayor crisis económica contemporánea, se encuentran en un punto crítico. Aunque el principal contexto geográfico de este ensayo sea el hemisferio occidental tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la Gran Recesión desatada en 2007-2008 ha afectado muy duramente al sistema general de relaciones sociales y económicas en todo el mundo. Por encima de cualquier otra consideración, destaca en los tiempos que vivimos la progresiva robotización de las democracias occidentales, que anuncia cambios profundos y estructurales de largo alcance. Esta cuarta revolución tecnológica, impulsada por la generalización de internet y la automatización, intensificará las progresivas aplicaciones de la inteligencia artificial y la ulterior maximización productiva. Eventualmente, los procesos en marcha harán superflua la necesidad de buena parte del trabajo asalariado. ¿Viviremos un futuro democrático como el de ahora, aunque sea con cambios tecnológicos, o será diferente? ¿Qué repercusión tendrá la robotización en las relaciones humanas en democracia? Se describe en detalle la robotización y la inteligencia artificial, y cómo influyen en los procesos de neofeudalismo en Estados Unidos y de la inevitabilidad de una renta ciudadana en el caso de la Unión Europea. ; Peer reviewed

Robotization implies long-term structural changes with far reaching consequences for democracy. This fourth technological revolution (Industry 4.0) has strengthened the autonomy of corporations and has empowered technostructure. Automation and the extensive use of internet are intensifying the progressive applications of the artificial intelligence (AI) and are set to further encourage productive maximization. Eventually, these ongoing processes will make superfluous many of the existing jobs. Shall we live a democratic future as we have known it until now? Will it be different because of the technological changes under way? What repercussions will they have for human relations? ; Peer reviewed

Contiene adjunto ficheros de datos. ; Hugo Chavez dominated the Venezuelan electoral landscape since his first presidential victory in 1998 until his death in 2013. Nobody doubts that he always received considerable voter support in the numerous elections held during his mandate. However, the integrity of the electoral system has come into question since the 2004 Presidential Recall Referendum. From then on, different sectors of society have systematically alleged electoral irregularities or biases in favor of the incumbent party. We have carried out a thorough forensic analysis of the national-level Venezuelan electoral processes held during the 1998-2012 period to assess these complaints. The second-digit Benford's law and two statistical models of vote distributions, recently introduced in the literature, are reviewed and used in our case study. In addition, we discuss a new method to detect irregular variations in the electoral roll. The outputs obtained from these election forensic tools are examined taking into account the substantive context of the elections and referenda under study. Thus, we reach two main conclusions. Firstly, all the tools uncover anomalous statistical patterns, which are consistent with election fraud from 2004 onwards. Although our results are not a concluding proof of fraud, they signal the Recall Referendum as a turning point in the integrity of the Venezuelan elections. Secondly, our analysis calls into question the reliability of the electoral register since 2004. In particular, we found irregular variations in the electoral roll that were decisive in winning the 50% majority in the 2004 Referendum and in the 2012 Presidential Elections. ; This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Projects ECO2011-25706 and CSO2012-35852).

9 pages, 3 figures.-- ArXiv pre-print available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.0506 ; We use a Press-Schechter-like calculation to study how the abundance of voids changes in models with non-Gaussian initial conditions. While a positive skewness increases the cluster abundance, a negative skewness does the same for the void abundance. We determine the dependence of the void abundance on the non-Gaussianity parameter fnl for the local-model bispectrum —which approximates the bispectrum in some multi-field inflation models— and for the equilateral bispectrum, which approximates the bispectrum in single-field slow-roll inflation and in string-inspired DBI models of inflation. We show that the void abundance in large-scale-structure surveys currently being considered should probe values as small as f(nl) <~ 10 and f(nl)eq <~ 30, over distance scales ~ 10 Mpc. ; This work was supported at Caltech by DoE DE-FG03-92-ER40701 and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. LV thanks M. LoVerde for providing the curves of Fig. 3(a,b) of Ref. [20] in table form. LV is supported by FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-3 IRG n 202182 and CSIC I3 grant 200750I034. RJ is supported by grants from the Spanish Science Ministry and The European Union (FP7). ; Peer reviewed

Since it was first observed in late 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a global emergency for national health systems due to millions of confirmed cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths. At a molecular level, the bottleneck for the infection is the binding of the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the viral spike protein to ACE2, an enzyme exposed on human cell membranes. Several experimental structures of the ACE2:RBD complex have been made available, however they offer only a static description of the arrangements of the molecules in either the free or bound states. In order to gain a dynamic description of the binding process that is key to infection, we use molecular simulations with a coarse grained model of the RBD and ACE2. We find that binding occurs in an all-or-none way, without intermediates, and that even in the bound state, the RBD exhibits a highly dynamic behaviour. From short equilibrium simulations started in the unbound state we provide snapshots that result in a tentative mechanism of binding. Our findings may be important for the development of drug discovery strategies that target the RBD. ; DDS receives financial support from the grants PGC2018-099321-B-I0 and RYC-2016- 19590 from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Research and Universities (MINECO/FEDER) and the Basque Government through grant IT588-13. The Spanish Ministry of Science, Research and Universities also supports JAG and RPJ through grants BIO2016-74875-P and BIO2016-77390-R, respectively. ; No

With a majority of 'Yes' votes in the Constitutional Referendum of 2017, Turkey continued its drift towards an autocracy. By the will of the Turkish people, this referendum transferred practically all executive power to president Erdoğan. However, the referendum was confronted with a substantial number of allegations of electoral misconducts and irregularities, ranging from state coercion of 'No' supporters to the controversial validity of unstamped ballots. Here we report the results of an election forensic analysis of recent Turkish elections to clarify to what extent it is plausible that these voting irregularities were present and able to influence the outcome of the referendum. We apply statistical forensics tests to identify the specific nature of the alleged electoral malpractices. In particular, we test whether the data contains fingerprints for ballot stuffing (submission of multiple ballots per person during the vote) and voter rigging (coercion and intimidation of voters). Additionally, we perform tests to identify numerical anomalies in the election results. For the 2017 Constitutional Referendum we find systematic and highly significant statistical support for the presence of both ballot stuffing and voter rigging. In 11% of stations we find signs for ballot stuffing with a standard deviation (uncertainty of ballot stuffing probability) of 2.7% (4 sigma event). Removing such ballot-stuffing-characteristic anomalies from the data would tip the overall balance from 'No' to a majority of 'Yes' votes. The 2017 election was followed by early elections in 2018 to directly vote for a new president who would now be head of state and government. We find statistical irregularities in the 2018 presidential and parliamentary elections similar in size and direction to those in 2017. These findings validate that our results unveil systematic and potentially even fraudulent biases that require further attention in order to combat electoral malpractices.

The Council of Public Works and Housing of the Government of Andalusia by means of the Andalusian Cartographic Institute has set a positioning geodetic network named Andalusian Positioning Network (RAP). The Laboratory of Astronomy, Geodesy and Cartography (LAGC) of the University of Cadiz is responsible for the design, development, quality checking, geodetic control and technical support of this network. The RAP network main goal is providing GPS data in RINEX format for post-processing operations, and broadcasting differential corrections (RTK or DGPS) from the stations for real-time operations. The RAP network is formed by 22 permanent stations distributed homogeneously as to solve the position problem along Andalusia, including the coast line. The network is referred to ETRF89 reference frame and it has become the geodetic reference frame to scientific and technologic applications, such as the geodynamic control of Andalusia; precise geoid determination; obtaining tropospheric and ionospheric models to regional climatological studies; setting photogrammetric points or marks for georeferencing of satellite images; establishing control points for reference networks in big civil works, for GIS applications, and for terrestrial, maritime and aerial navigation etc. In this paper we present the proceedings to design and set up of the network, to the organization and quality checking of data and the stations. Finally we explain the methodology established to calculate and adjust the RAP network. ; IECA (instituto de Estadística y Cartografía de Andalucía) Junta de Andalucía ; - Autor/es: Berrocoso M., Paez R., Jigena B. and Caturla C. - Título: The RAP Net: A Geodetic Positioning Network for Andalusia (South Spain) - Nombre de la revista: EUREF Publication No. 16 - Volumen: Publication No. 16 - Página inicial y final de

We show that the quasielastic (QE) response calculated with the superscaling approach (SuSAv2) model, that relies on the scaling phenomenon observed in the analysis of (e,e′) data and on the relativistic mean-field theory, is very similar to that from a relativistic distorted-wave impulse approximation model when only the real part of the optical potentials is employed. The coincidence between the results from these two completely independent approaches, which satisfactorily agree with the inclusive data, reinforces the reliability of the quasielastic predictions stemming from both models and sets constraints for the QE response. We also study the low-energy and momentum-transfer region of the inclusive response by confronting the results of the relativistic mean-field model with those of the Hartree-Fock continuum random-phase approximation model, which accounts for nuclear long-range correlations. Finally, we present a comparison of our results with the recent Jefferson Laboratory (JLab) (e,e′) data for argon, titanium, and carbon, finding good agreement with the three data sets. ; Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad and European Regional Development Fund) FIS2017-88410-P ; Junta de Andalucia FQM 160, SOMM17/6105/UGR ; Consolider-Ingenio 2000 program CPAN (CSD2007-0042) ; Spanish Government (FPA2015-65035P and RTI2018-098868-B-I00)

Titin, as the main protein responsible for the passive stiffness of the sarcomere, plays a key role in diastolic function and is a determinant factor in the etiology of heart disease. Titin stiffness depends on unfolding and folding transitions of immunoglobulin-like (Ig) domains of the I-band, and recent studies have shown that oxidative modifications of cryptic cysteines belonging to these Ig domains modulate their mechanical properties in vitro. However, the relevance of this mode of titin mechanical modulation in vivo remains largely unknown. Here, we describe the high evolutionary conservation of titin mechanical cysteines and show that they are remarkably oxidized in murine cardiac tissue. Mass spectrometry analyses indicate a similar landscape of basal oxidation in murine and human myocardium. Monte Carlo simulations illustrate how disulfides and S-thiolations on these cysteines increase the dynamics of the protein at physiological forces, while enabling load- and isoform-dependent regulation of titin stiffness. Our results demonstrate the role of conserved cysteines in the modulation of titin mechanical properties in vivo and point to potential redox-based pathomechanisms in heart disease. ; This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación grants BIO2014-54768-P, BIO2017-83640-P, RYC-2014-16604 to JAC and PGC2018-097019-B-I00 to JV, the Regional Government of Madrid grants S2018/NMT-4443 and PEJ16/MED/TL-1593 to JAC and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria grant PRB3 (PT17/0019/0003- ISCIII-SGEFI /ERDF, ProteoRed), and "la Caixa" Banking Foundation (project code HR17-00247) to JV. We acknowledge funding from the European Research Area Network on Cardiovascular Disease through grant MINOTAUR to SS (The Austrian Science Fund – FWF, I3301) and JAC (ISCIII-AC16/00045). The CNIC is supported by ISCIII, the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and the Pro CNIC Foundation, and was a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence (SEV-2015-0505). IMM was the recipient of a CNIC-ACCIONA Masters Fellowship and holds a fellowship from "La Caixa" Foundation (ID 100010434, fellowship code LCF/BQ/DR20/11790009). CSC is the recipient of an FPI-SO predoctoral fellowship BES-2016-076638. We thank Wolfgang A. Linke and Pablo García-Pavía for critical feedback. We are also thankful for the insights of three anonymous reviewers. ; Sí