Barcelona City Council Digital Plan

Presentada per la Comissionada de Tecnologia i innovació Digital a la la Comissió d’Economia i Hisenda de 19-10-2017Podeu consultar la versió en català a: http://hdl.handle.net/11703/106226Podeu consultar la versió en castellà a: http://hdl.handle.net/11703/115019Es basa en la mesura de govern Transició cap a la Sobirania Tecnològica : Pla "Barcelona Ciutat Digital" [http://hdl.handle.net/11703/98713]Podeu consultar la part de Els nostres estàndards de serveis digitals a: http://hdl.handle.net/11703/106281Podeu consultar la part de Codi de pràctiques tecnològiques de l'Ajuntament de Barcelona a: http://hdl.handle.net/11703/106292Podeu consultar la part de Metodologies Agile a l'Ajuntament de Barcelona a: http://hdl.handle.net/11703/106296Podeu consultar la part de Guia sobre sobirania tecnològica a l'Ajuntament de Barcelona a: http://hdl.handle.net/11703/106302Referenciat per la Mesura de govern de gestió ètica i responsable de dades : Barcelona Data Commons [http://hdl.handle.net/11703/108253

Resource extraction projects and health: evidence from cross-national and national data sources

Implementation of resource extraction projects often triggers a series of complex environmental and social-ecological changes. These changes may include alterations in land use (i.e., from forestry and vegetation to infrastructure and mining), an increase in construction activities (new buildings such as houses, schools and hospitals), population increase (more people, more road traffic), urbanization, movement and installation of heavy machinery, increases in employment and business opportunities and household resettlements. These changes can positively or negatively affect health of the population living within mining areas and beyond. For instance, one common and most visible contribution of resource extraction projects is the impact on income generation. This has been widely studied in the economic literature, showing both positive and negative effects between natural resources activities and income generation. Positively, governments can benefit from the generated resource rents and royalties. Individually, people can earn income from employment and business opportunities. The revenue generated can help governments to re-invest in other sectors, including health, education and infrastructure. Negatively, the sharp increase in economic development in one sector can hamper growth in other sectors causing what is known as the Dutch disease. The presence of resource-income dependency can as well fuel local conflicts, political instability, weak institutions and corruption, and ultimately result in a slow development process causing the resource curse. One major aspect of resource extraction projects which is often under-represented is its implication on health. Health is influenced both directly and indirectly through activities involved in resource extraction projects. Evidence suggests that resource extraction projects can positively or negatively affect health and well-being of the population therein. This directly relates to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 3 (SDG3) of the SDGs 2030 agenda. SDG3 aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. Health has a central place in SDG3, and it is also central to the three dimensions of sustainable development: environment, society and economy. Resource extract projects can act on determinants of health and ultimately contribute to improve lives and well-being. An increase in income can promote access to better care, construction of health care post and hospitals can contribute to improving healthcare delivery, constructions of water points can improve the availability of clean water, and lastly but not least, the provision of health education can contribute to knowledge and disease prevention. On the other hand, resource extraction projects can cause environmental disruption linked to air, water and land pollution. This can further result in disease outcomes. Combustion activities associated with the extraction process can result in the presence of small particulate matter (PM2.5) in the atmosphere and further lead to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Toxic substances often used in the extraction process can leak into the environment and result in cancer diseases. The presence of both positive and negative health outcomes in resource extraction areas present an opportunity to systematically study the contribution of resource extraction projects to health outcomes. This PhD thesis embarked on this particular opportunity and studied the association between resource extraction projects and population health indicators in three layered perspectives: global, national and subnational

Peer influence in the diffusion of iPhone 3G over a large social network

In this paper, we study the effect of peer influence in the diffusion of the iPhone 3G across a number of communities sampled from a large dataset provided by a major European Mobile carrier in one country. We identify tight communities of users in which peer influence may play a role and use instrumental variables to control for potential correlation between unobserved subscriber heterogeneity and friends' adoption. We provide evidence that the propensity of a subscriber to adopt increases with the percentage of friends who have already adopted. During a period of 11 months, we estimate that 14 percent of iPhone 3Gs sold by this carrier were due to peer influence. This result is obtained after controlling for social clustering, gender, previous adoption of mobile Internet data plans, ownership of technologically advanced handsets, and heterogeneity in the regions where subscribers move during the day and spend most of their evenings. This result remains qualitatively unchanged when we control for changes over time in the structure of the social network. We provide results from several policy experiments showing that, with this level of effect of peer influence, the carrier would have hardly benefitted from using traditional marketing strategies to seed the iPhone 3G to benefit from viral marketing.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Handoffs in Hospitals: A review of the literature on information exchange while transferring patient responsibility or control

This document reviews the full collection of literature on hospital handoffs and is referenced by shorter publications. Researchers may see abstracts at http://www.connotea.org/user/signout . Access to the full text of the articles may be requested by contacting the authors.Background: In hospitals, handoffs are episodes in which control of, or responsibility for, a patient passes from one health professional to another, and in which important information about the patient is also exchanged. In view of the growing interest in improving handoff processes, and the need for guidance in arriving at standardized handoff procedures, a review of the research on handoffs is provided. Methods: The authors have attempted to identify all research treatments of hospital handoffs involving medical personnel published in English through July 2008. Results: Findings from the literature are organized into six themes: 1) The definition of 'handoff'; 2) The functions of handoffs; 3) The challenges and difficulties of handing off; 4) The costs and benefits of standardization; 5) Possible protocols for standardizing of handoffs; and 6) Questions needing answers, and methods of research. Conclusions: The large body of relevant literature shows handoff to be highly sensitive to variations in context, to be an activity that is essential for multiple important functions within a hospital that range far beyond patient safety, and to be subject to difficult tensions that necessarily attend efforts to standardize action within a highly differentiated hospital setting. In addition, there is little empirical evidence regarding the magnitude of the impact of handoff on patient safety and service quality, making the potential gains and complications from standardization uncertain.Robert Wood Johnson Foundationhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61498/1/Handoffs_in_Hospitals_Literature_Review_081014.pd

Spartan Daily, April 7, 1998

Volume 110, Issue 46https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9262/thumbnail.jp

Study of Optical OFDM System for Wireless LAN Applications

The advantages of optical fiber make it possible to extend the data rate transmission and propagation distance. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) as a multicarrier technique (MC) is used in hybrid optical-wireless system designs because it has the best spectral efficiency to radio frequency (RF) interference and lower multipath distortion. In this dissertation, a study and evaluation of optical OFDM based wireless local area network (W-LAN) systems are presented. The baseband of the OFDM signal is fully transmitted and up-converted to a radio frequency signal. Also, to reduce system costs, simple base stations (BSs) are interconnected to a central office (CO) via an optical fiber. All the required operations are achieved in the CO. The directly modulated laser (DML) and continuous wave (CW) laser are used in the system simulations as optical laser sources. Identical rectangular microstrip patch antennas have been used at the transmitter and the receiver as well. The simulations were carried out for different SMF and MMF lengths, and the variable wireless distance between the transmitting and receiving antennas was in a range of 40 dB to 80 dB. The purpose of this work is to provide a framework for integrating wireless and optical technologies in one system with the presence of OFDM technology. The required microstrip patch antenna parameters for the system are analyzed and designed. The microstrip patch antenna (S-parameters) is loaded into the Optisystem communication software tool in Touchstone format. As a result, this achievement gives a greater impetus to design an integrated optical-wireless system, and simulation results validate the proposed technique. Then, the integration of the microstrip patch antenna and optical OFDM system is achieved, and the performance is intensely studied. The entire system has been presented by developing analytical models and simulations. The system performance results are obtained regarding EIRP, SNR, signal constellations and BER. The results show that this integrated optical wireless link is very robust for carrying OFDM based wireless LAN signals over an optical fiber. Moreover, using an active patch antenna in the system helps to increase the coverage service to more than 30 meters when an SMF of 80 km length is utilized

Development of a Cognitive Assistant for the Preliminary Design of Spacecrafts

The thesis explains the design and development of a cognitive tool to assist humans in the process of designing space missions, specifically individual spacecrafts. The tool is based on a web interface and a rule-based expert system engine to model the spacecraft.Outgoin

Exploring and Understanding Signal-response Relationships and Response Dynamics of Microbial Two-Component Signaling Systems

Two-component signaling systems are found in bacteria, fungi and plants. They mediate many of the physiological responses of these organisms to their environment and display several conserved biochemical and structural features. This thesis identifies a potential functional role for two commonly found architectures in two-component signaling system, the split kinases and phosphate sink, which suggests that by enabling switch-like behaviors they could underlie physiological decision making. I report that split histidine kinases, where autophosphorylation and phosphotransfer activities are segregated onto distinct proteins capable of complex formation, enable ultrasensitivity and bistability. By employing computer simulations and analytical approaches, I show that the specific biochemical features of split kinases “by design” enable higher nonlinearity in the system response compared to conventional two-component systems and those using bifunctional (but not split) kinases. I experimentally show that one of these requirements, namely segregation of the phosphatase activity only to the free form of one of the proteins making up the split kinase, is met in proteins isolated from Rhodobacter sphaeroides. While the split kinase I study from R. sphaeroides is specifically involved in chemotaxis, other split kinases are involved in diverse responses. Genomics studies suggest 2.3% of all chemotaxis kinases, and 2.8% of all kinases could be functioning as split kinases. Combining theoretical and experimental approaches, I show that the phosphate sink motif found in microbial and plant TCSs allows threshold behaviors. This motif involves a single histidine kinase that can phosphotransfer reversibly to two separate response regulators and examples are found in bacteria, yeast and plants. My results show that one of the response regulators can act as a “sink” or “buffer” that needs to be saturated before the system can generate significant responses. This sink, thereby allows the generation of a signal threshold that needs to be exceeded for there to be significant phosphoryl group flow to the other response regulator. Thus, this system can enable cells to display switch-like behavior to external signals. Using an analytical approach, I identify mathematical conditions on the system parameters that are necessary for threshold dynamics. I find these conditions to be satisfied in both of the natural systems where the system parameters have been measured. Further, by in vitro reconstitution of a sample system, I experimentally demonstrate threshold dynamics for a phosphate-sink containing two-component system. This study provides a link between these architectures of TCSs and signal-response relationship, thereby enabling experimentally testable hypotheses in these diverse two-component systems. These findings indicate split kinases and phosphate as a microbial alternative for enabling ultrasensitivity and bistability - known to be crucial for cellular decision making. By demonstrating ultrasensitivity, threshold dynamics and their mechanistic basis in a common class of two-component system, this study allows a better understanding of cellular signaling in a diverse range of organisms and will open the way to the design of novel threshold systems in synthetic biology. Thus, I believe that this study will have broad implications not only for microbiologists but also systems biologists who aim to decipher conserved dynamical features of cellular networks.University of Exete

I knew it all along - Hindsight bias before and after the fact

In hindsight, events often seem predictable, more obvious, and more likely than in foresight. This tendency of overestimating what one knew before an event happened (“I knew that all along”) is a psychological phenomenon called hindsight bias. This dissertation focusses on hindsight bias at different stages of knowledge about an event. On the one hand, hindsight bias may develop even in the absence of definite knowledge about what happened. On the other hand, hindsight distortions may be communicated and enhanced even after clarification of what happened (for example through Wikipedia articles). This dissertation thus answers the following questions: Do hindsight distortions necessarily require definite knowledge? Is a conjecture sufficient to elicit hindsight bias? Two studies, on field-study surrounding the missing flight MH370 and one laboratory study, provided answers. I found that hindsight bias can indeed develop on the basis of conjectures, as participants were convinced to have ‘conjectured all along’. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the magnitude of the resulting hindsight bias is comparable to hindsight bias based on definite knowledge. These findings are novel contributions to hindsight bias research and provide relevant insights in underlying mechanisms such as sense-making processes. How does hindsight bias transfer into written artefacts? What are the consequences of reading material that is distorted by hindsight bias? Does the reader’s hindsight bias increase even further? Four studies offer further insights into the answers of these questions. I found that a) hindsight distortions in written artefacts are directly related to the author’s level of bias, b) reading such a distorted article can further increase a reader’s hindsight bias and c) the phenomenon is not moderated by cognitive thinking style due to different cultural backgrounds. These findings demonstrate that the hindsight bias of an individual can be communicated via written artefacts and thus spreads and proliferates among many.Im Nachhinein erscheinen Ereignisse oft vorhersehbarer, zwangsläufiger und wahrscheinlicher als im Vorhinein. Die Tendenz im Nachhinein zu überschätzen, was man im Vorhinein wusste („Ich habe das ja schon immer gesagt!“), ist ein psychologisches Phänomen namens Rückschaufehler (engl. hindsight bias). Diese Dissertation befasst sich mit dem Rückschaufehler in verschiedenen Stadien des Wissens um ein Ereignis. Zum einen geht es darum, inwiefern es ohne konkretes Wissen darüber, was passiert ist, also z.B. im Falle einer Vermutung, einen Rückschaufehler geben kann, und zum anderen inwiefern sich Rückschauverzerrungen (am Beispiel von Wikipedia) verbreiten und verstärken, wenn die Umstände eines Ereignisses längst klar sind. In zwei Studien zeigte sich, dass der Rückschaufehler auch auf Grundlage von Vermutungen entstehen kann, in dem Sinne, dass die Überzeugung entsteht, etwas schon immer vermutet zu haben. Darüber hinaus zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass ein vermutungsbasierter Rückschaufehler sich in der Ausprägung nicht von einem wissensbasierten Rückschaufehler unterscheidet. Des Weiteren habe ich in vier Laborstudien untersucht und gefunden, dass a) Rückschauverzerrungen in Schriftstücken direkt mit dem Rückschaufehler ihrer Autoren zusammenhängen, b) das Lesen solch eines Artikels den individuellen Rückschaufehler verstärkt und c) dieser Effekt nicht durch kulturell bedingte Unterschiede in Denkmustern moderiert wird. Diese Befunde zeigen somit, dass der Rückschaufehler des Einzelnen durch ein Medium unter Vielen verbreitet werden und sich dadurch vervielfachen und verstärken kann