Megastore is one of the building blocks of Google’s data infrastructure. It has allowed storingand processing operations of huge volumes of data (Big Data) with high scalability, reliabilityand security. Companies and individuals using this technology benefit from a highly availableand stable service. In this paper an analysis of Google’s data infrastructure is made, startingwith a review of the core components that have been developed in recent years until theimplementation of Megastore. An analysis is also made of the most important.

The recent development of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology has enabled the emergence of payment services using mobile phones. Furthermore, this technological innovation initiated an ongoing evolution concerning payment transactions. Companies and researchers project that the prevalent function of credit cards will be progressively substituted by mobile devices. In this paper NFC is described in detail and a graphed based network analysis is performed to determine players and industries involved in the network as well as the relations, including conflicts, cooperation, or alliances between these actors.

The Metropolitan District of Quito covers 61.563 has., containing many species of flora andfauna. Accelerated urbanization processes have led to illegal housing and human invasions,putting pressure on existing forests, especially on the slopes of Pichincha and the ravines of thenorthern part of the District. The Metropolitan District of Quito, in its Natural Heritage Policy,prioritizes the integration, connectivity, maintenance, recovery and rehabilitation of naturalareas, to support the District environmental security. Focus is put on reducing the anthropiceffects on the affected ecosystems and natural areas. To reinforce this policy, the Municipalitysigned a contract for the reforestation of eleven ravines in La Delicia. The reforestation wasdone from April to June 2012, on a total of 43 has., with the commitment of planting 37.152plants. To track this process the Municipality planned an initial monitoring to determine thestatus of the reforestation and its impact on the selected ravines. Planted and surviving plantswere counted on each of the eleven ravines, and a compliance of only 5.05% of the plannedreforestation was verified.

In May 2012, using a 30x30 cm surface and 0.5 mm aperture Surber net in the rivers: PindoMirador, Pindo Grande and Alpayacu, located in Mera, Pastaza, Ecuadorian Amazonia, thediversity and abundance of macro invertebrates was analyzed applying the BMWP/Col and theEPT indexes. It was determined the good Pindo Mirador, Pindo Grande and Alpayacu rivers’water quality, as well as the bad Alpayacu river’s water quality. This work provides an overviewof the environmental situation of aquatic ecosystems near Pindo Mirador Biological Station, ithighlights the importance of the rivers’ micro-watersheds near Pindo Mirador Biological Station,used as water source by the populations living downstream, and shows how macroinvertebrates can be used as bioindicators for the water and forests quality.