Climate change and sustainability have recently been object of study due to the impact on the planet and on human activity of the first and the benefits that could derive from the efficiency of the second. Particularly, urban environments are locations that represent a high percentage of emissions of gases, waste, resources use and so forth. However, they are places where great changes can be made, in an attempt to accomplish the urgent challenge to adapt to current and projected rates of climate change. Research has shown that a fruitful approach to urban sustainability is to describe indicators that measure the effectiveness of current processes of urban infrastructures, analyze areas in need of improvement and measure the effect of any actions taken. The significant feature of this research relies on its global approach, considering both major worldwide used and less widely-spread frameworks and the analysis of the 32 selected tools and guidelines, including over 2000 indicators. The result is a proposed structure of 14 categories and 48 indicators, easily applicable in urban areas, that tries to fulfill basic aspects to obtain a general diagnosis of the sustainable nature of the urban environment, which can serve as support to detect the strongest and weakest areas in terms of their sustainability.

Air pollution is the fourth-largest overall risk factor for human health worldwide. Ambient air pollution (outdoors) and household air pollution (indoors) cause about 6.5 million premature deaths. The World Health Organization has established that between 3% and 14% of lung cancer cases are due to radon gas, making it the most important cause of lung cancer after smoking. This work presents a fully automated, low-cost indoor air quality control system that can monitor temperature, pressure, humidity, total volatile organic compounds (TOVC), and radon concentration. Using the radon concentration as an air quality measure, we created a prediction algorithm. The system uses those predictions to control a ventilation system automatically. We tested the algorithm for different prediction windows and compared the results with those without the ventilation system in a radon research room. In this room, the radon concentration is high 100% of the time, reaching a level eleven times higher than the recommended limit. The results show that the system can achieve an 86% reduction of the radon concentration, maintaining it low 90% of the time while having the ventilation system on during only 34% of the time. This work demonstrates that we can control air quality using low-cost resources, keeping a household or workplace safe but comfortable.

The convergence towards the European Higher Education Area involved a profound rethinking of the teaching process used by university teachers. This situation forced professors to rethinktheir teaching methods in an individual, professional and anthropological way, given the importance of teaching methodologies in the new higher education framework. The sample of this paperwas collected through the teaching guides of all the technical degrees containing any subjects related to Graphic Design of all the Universities in Galicia (Spain) to find out which teaching methods are used. In order to achieve this objective, a mixed methodology was carried out. The results indicate that the educational strategies have not changed, and traditional and archaiclecture is still the most widely used.

Resumen El propósito de esta investigación es analizar si se trabajan de manera interdisciplinar las materias de música y matemáticas en los primeros años de escolaridad. Opción metodológica que en los últimos años está recibiendo un gran empuje en esta etapa educativa, en contraposición a los modelos tradicionales. La muestra está formada por 360 profesores de educación infantil y educación musical de colegios públicos y concertados de la provincia de A Coruña (Galicia, España). Para llevar a cabo el análisis se diseñó un cuestionario que se aplicó en noviembre de 2013. Los resultados reflejan que la mayoría de profesores pertenece a centros públicos y le otorgan la misma importancia a las asignaturas de música y matemáticas. Consideran que es importante trabajarlas de forma interdisciplinar, pues de este modo mejora la formación integral del alumnado. Sin embargo, no se sienten capacitados para abordar el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje de este modo. En la mayoría de los casos son distintos profesores quienes imparten ambas materias y no programan ni utilizan materiales y actividades de forma conjunta, aunque evalúan de forma interdisciplinar. Por último, en la discusión, se realizan ciertas consideraciones finales que ponen de manifiesto el porqué es importante la investigación, pues los resultados obtenidos nos permiten conocer la realidad de nuestras aulas, y nos inducen a afirmar la necesidad de la formación del profesorado para dar impulso a la enseñanza-aprendizaje de música y matemáticas de educación infantil a través de la interdisciplinariedad.