A Multigrid Optimization Algorithm for the Numerical Solution of Quasilinear Variational Inequalities Involving the pp-Laplacian

In this paper we propose a multigrid optimization algorithm (MG/OPT) for the numerical solution of a class of quasilinear variational inequalities of the second kind. This approach is enabled by the fact that the solution of the variational inequality is given by the minimizer of a nonsmooth energy functional, involving the $p$-Laplace operator. We propose a Huber regularization of the functional and a finite element discretization for the problem. Further, we analyze the regularity of the discretized energy functional, and we are able to prove that its Jacobian is slantly differentiable. This regularity property is useful to analyze the convergence of the MG/OPT algorithm. In fact, we demostrate that the algorithm is globally convergent by using a mean value theorem for semismooth functions. Finally, we apply the MG/OPT algorithm to the numerical simulation of the viscoplastic flow of Bingham, Casson and Herschel-Bulkley fluids in a pipe. Several experiments are carried out to show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm when solving this kind of fluid mechanics problems

Using Artificial Vision Techniques for Individual Player Tracking in Sport Events

[Abstract] We introduce a hybrid approach that can track an individual football player in a video sequence. This solution achieves a good balance between speed and accuracy, combining traditional object tracking techniques with Deep Neural Networks (DNN). While traditional techniques lack accuracy, the main shortcoming of DNN is performance. Both types of techniques complement to each other to provide an accurate and fast object tracking approach that does not require human intervention. The accuracy of our solution has been validated using the SoccerNet Dataset against hand annotated video sequences. For the tracking of 4 different players of 2 different teams our approach has achieved an Area Under Curve (AUC) of 0.66, in terms of accuracy, and a frame rate of 91.75 FPS, in terms of performance, running on a Nvidia GTX 1080Ti GPU

Aprendizaje con robótica, algunas experiencias

Este artículo presenta el análisis de experiencias, revisadas en diversos artículos, acerca de la implementación de la robótica en la educación, con el fin de obtener referentes pertinentes para la construcción de una propuesta para el aprendizaje de la robótica en la educación básica secundaria y media. Se consideran dos ámbitos de aplicación de la robótica en la educación: el primero es el aprendizaje de la robótica mediante la conceptualización de cada uno de los subsistemas de un robot para luego realizar la construcción de robots con diferentes propósitos, en este ámbito el objetivo es desarrollar las competencias, en los estudiantes, para el diseño y construcción de tecnofactos robóticos, mediante un proceso de construcción del conocimiento necesario para hacerlo; el segundo ámbito de aplicación es la utilización de la robótica como medio que motiva y da sentido a la construcción de conocimiento en diversas áreas, promoviendo habilidades y competencias en los estudiantes. Además, el aprendizaje de la robótica y el aprendizaje con robótica pueden ser mediados por la informática, la cual aporta tecnologías y herramientas software como los lenguajes de modelado matemático y simulación, tutoriales multimediales, laboratorios virtuales y remotos, entre otros. Así, este artículo se propone destacar cómo la robótica en el aula de clase permite, por una parte, el enriquecer estrategias de aprendizaje como apoyo a la formación integral de los estudiantes, y por otra, es un campo que presenta una demanda creciente en la atención de docentes e investigadores, así como en los estímulos para su investigación, desarrollo y divulgación de parte del estado

Rentabilidad y estrategia en restaurantes de comida casual y comida fina en la ciudad de Quito

The objective of this thesis is to analyze the restaurant industry for the casual and fine dining restaurants in Quito, in order to get to know the profitability and strategy of the industry. The authors plan to do so by using premises based on Porter’s forces. The study is focused on determining if the restaurants of each category belong in the same strategic groups, if there is idle capacity in the restaurants, if there is a threat due to substitute products, the influence caused by the size of the providers and the extent to which consumers are informed. Once the study is complete, the restaurant owners will have a tool with which they will be able to make the right decisions about their business and entrepreneurs will have a guide know about the industry.Esta tesis busca analizar la industria de los restaurantes casuales y de comida fina en Quito para dar a conocer su rentabilidad y estrategia. Se pretende analizar la industria utilizando cinco premisas basadas en las fuerzas de Porter. El estudio se enfoca en determinar si los restaurantes de cada categoría pertenecen a los mismos grupos estratégicos, si se presenta capacidad ociosa en los restaurantes, si existe una amenaza por productos sustitutos, la influencia del tamaño de los proveedores y la medida en la que están informados los consumidores. Se pretende conocer cuál es la percepción que tienen los propietarios frente a estos factores. Una vez realizado este estudio los dueños de restaurantes tendrán una herramienta con la que podrán tomar decisiones acertadas y los emprendedores contarán con una guía que les permita reconocer el estado de la industria

Development of an Analytical Procedure to Analyze Microplastics in Edible Macroalgae Using an Enzymatic-Oxidative Digestion

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG[Abstract] Besides being food and a refuge to marine species, macroalgae are a powerful and renewable economic resource. However, they may introduce microplastics (MPs) in the trophic chain. We developed a reliable analytical method to characterize and quantify MPs in common and edible macroalgae. Several digestion methods and filters, along with various measurement options, were studied. A new enzymatic-oxidative protocol with a unique final filtration was selected and validated with a mixture of 5 commercial macroalgae (Undaria pinnatifida spp, Porphyra spp, Ulva spp, Laminaria ochroleuca and Himanthalia elongate). Further, it was shown that washing the macroalgae to release MPs is suboptimal and the potential adhesion of MPs to macroalgae was evaluated. A filter subsampling strategy that scans 33.64 % of its surface reduced the time required to characterize <70 μm particles and fibres directly on the 47 mm diameter filter using an IR microscope (1 sample/day).This work is a part of the projects MicroplastiX (Grant PCI2020-112145, JPI Oceans Project supported by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union “Next Generation EU/PRTR”) and LAnd-Based solutions for PLAStics in the Sea, LABPLAS, (Grant H2020-101003954 supported by the EU H2020 program). The Program “Consolidación e Estructuración de Unidades de Investigación Competitivas” of the Galician Government (Xunta de Galicia) is also acknowledged (Grant ED431C 2021/56). Funding for open access charge: Universidade da Coruña/CISUGXunta de Galicia; ED431C 2021/5

Propuesta de planificación estratégica para la mejora y renovación de la imagen corporativa del Instituto Superior Tecnológico Particular Sudamericano de la ciudad de Cuenca

Hoy en día la sociedad reclama honestidad y transparencia al mundo empresarial, por tanto, las empresas se ven en la necesidad de buscar estrategias que permitan persuadir a los públicos a través de una imagen positiva que provoque en ellos el sentimiento de confianza, satisfacción y fidelidad. Es así como se planteó dicho proyectotitulado Propuesta de planificación estratégica para la mejora y renovación de la imagen corporativa del Instituto Superior Tecnológico Particular Sudamericano de la ciudad de Cuenca, que tiene como objetivo, elevar el nivel de calidad de imagen corporativa de la institución, pero enfocada en el ámbito de las relaciones públicas; esto consiste en valorar todos los activos intangibles del instituto, mismos que se relacionan con: la cultura corporativa, la filosofía corporativa, y la comunicación organizacional. Para ello y para mayor discernimiento del tema, se explicará el proyecto en cuatro capítulos: el primero hace referencia a la fundamentación teórica, basada en teorías de diferentes autores de la rama de comunicación y relaciones públicas; el segundo capítulo se centra en el análisis general del Instituto, esto comprende un análisis interno y externo, la investigación metodológica y el análisis FODA; el tercer capítulo presenta la propuesta de un plan de mejora para la imagen corporativa del Instituto Tecnológico Particular Sudamericano; y finalmente, en el cuarto capítulo se expone la aplicación y ejecución de las estrategias planteadas en el proyecto.Nowadays society demands honesty and transparency to business world, therefore, enterprises are in need to seek strategies to persuade people with a positive image that causes them the feeling of confidence, satisfaction and loyalty . Thus, the project entitled Proposal of strategic planning for the improvement and renewal of the corporate image ofInstitutoTecnológico Particular Sudamericano in Cuenca, has the objective of raising the quality level of corporate image of the institution, but focusing on the field of public relations; this is to value all intangible assets of the institute, which are related to: corporate culture, corporate philosophy, and organizational communication. For this and for further insight into the topic, the project will be explained in four chapters: the first one refers to the theoretical basis based on the theories of different authors in the field of social communication and public relations; the second chapter focuses on the general analysis of the institute, this comprises an internal and external analysis and methodological research and SWOT analysis; in the third chapter, a proposal for an improvement plan for the corporate image of InstitutoTecnológico Particular Sudamericano is presented; and finally, in the fourth chapter, the application and execution of the strategies proposed in the project are exposed.Licenciada en Ciencias de la Comunicación Social. Mención Publicidad y Relaciones PúblicasCuenc

Probing the Efficacy of Hardware-Aware Weight Pruning to Optimize the SpMM routine on Ampere GPUs

[Abstract]: The Deep Learning (DL) community found in pruning techniques a good way to reduce the models' resource and energy consumption. These techniques lead to smaller sparse models, but sparse computations in GPUs only outperform their dense counterparts for extremely high levels of sparsity. However, pruning up to such sparsity levels can seriously harm the accuracy of the Neural Networks (NNs). To alleviate this, novel performance-aware pruning techniques favor the generation of more regular sparse matrices that can improve the exploitation of the underlying hardware. Nevertheless, an important drawback is that these techniques heavily condition the location of the non-pruned values, which can strongly degrade the accuracy of the models. This paper focuses on improving the performance of the SpMM routine on DL workloads by combining performance-aware pruning with pruning-independent SpMM kernels to relax input-format constraints. We start with a microarchitecture-level performance study of SOTA SpMM implementations to identify their main bottlenecks and flaws. Then, the paper centers on maximizing the performance of the routine by adjusting the parameters of performance-aware pruning techniques to the hardware properties. This second study explains the intrinsic causes of the observed performance results. We show that, following this approach, a generic SpMM routine can perform up to 49% and 77% better for half and single precision, respectively, than using non-performance-aware pruning, providing speedups over cuBlas of up to 1.87× and 4.20×, respectively. Additionally, the performance achieved on half precision is boosted with a new Ampere-ready specialized implementation for the columnvector sparse format, CLASP, which achieves a 2.42× speedup over cuBlas. Finally, we also introduce ad-colPrune, a novel pruning technique that widens the design space of possible trade-offs between performance and accuracy. © 2022 Association for Computing Machinery.Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2021/30Xunta de Galicia; ED431G 2019/01This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (PID2019-104184RB-I00, AEI, 10.13039/501100011033), the Ministry of Education (predoctoral grant of Roberto L. Castro, FPU19/03974), and by Xunta de Galicia under the Consolidation Program of Competitive Reference Groups (ED431C 2021/30). We also acknowledge the support from CITIC, funded by Xunta de Galicia and FEDER funds of the EU (Centro de Investigación de Galicia accreditation 2019-2022, ED431G 2019/01). Finally, we acknowledge the Centro de Supercomputación de Galicia (CESGA) for the use of their computers

Orofacial features and medical profile of eight individuals with Kabuki syndrome

To evaluate oral, craniofacial and systemic characteristics of eight patients with Kabuki syndrome (KS), aged between 3 and 16 years old. In this retrospective study, medical records of all patients were reviewed for information on family history, growth and development, medications in use, general systemic complications and oral and craniofacial characteristics. The medical alterations found included recurrent infections such as pneumonia and otitis media (n = 6), cardiovascular malformations (n = 4), kidney abnormalities (n = 2), epilepsy (n = 2) and visual deficiency (n = 2). The individuals exhibited dental caries (n = 5), agenesis (n = 5), delayed tooth eruption (n = 4), cleft lip/palate (n = 2) enamel hypoplasia (n = 2), fusion (n = 1) and microdontia (n = 1). There was a great diversity of oral, craniofacial and systemic characteristic among the KS patients, suggesting that an inter-disciplinary approach should be taken for their dental treatment

OpenCNN: A Winograd Minimal Filtering Algorithm Implementation in CUDA

[Abstract] Improving the performance of the convolution operation has become a key target for High Performance Computing (HPC) developers due to its prevalence in deep learning applied mainly to video processing. The improvement is being pushed by algorithmic and implementation innovations. Algorithmically, the convolution can be solved as it is mathematically enunciated, but other methods allow to transform it into a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) or a GEneral Matrix Multiplication (GEMM). In this latter group, the Winograd algorithm is a state-of-the-art variant that is specially suitable for smaller convolutions. In this paper, we present openCNN, an optimized CUDA C++ implementation of the Winograd convolution algorithm. Our approach achieves speedups of up to 1.76× on Turing RTX 2080Ti and up to 1.85× on Ampere RTX 3090 with respect to Winograd convolution in cuDNN 8.2.0. OpenCNN is released as open-source software.This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (PID2019-104184RB-I00, AEI/FEDER/EU, 10.13039/501100011033) and the predoctoral grant of Roberto L. Castro (FPU19/03974). and by the Xunta de Galicia co-founded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the Consolidation Programme of Competitive Reference Groups (ED431C 2021/30). CITIC, Centro de Investigación de Galicia ref. ED431G 2019/01, receives financial support from Consellería de Educación, Universidade e Formación Profesional, Xunta de Galicia, through the ERDF (80%) and Secretaría Xeral de Universidades (20%)Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2021/30Xunta de Galicia; ED431G 2019/0