The evaluation of E-business related technologies in the Railway Industry

For the purposes of this paper, e-business is defined as: "the performance, automisation and organisation of transactions, or chains of them, and the gathering and publishing of data, electronically over a communication protocol" Little research has been conducted either into how e-business technology can be successfully evaluated, or into the associated costs and benefits specifically related to the transportation and railway industries. Based upon a review of the current literature and a series of interviews held with railway operators, track managers and transportation customers from the Australian Fortune 100, the paper puts forward a framework for the evaluation of e-business investments within the railway industry. The research reported here is aimed at developing a flexible interface that enables the decision maker to assess and evaluate a wide variety of complex interacting variables. The proposed approach uses a variety of evaluation methods, as opposed to searching for a single "best" approach. Additionally, an attempt is being made to include the complex interaction between the implementation of the new technology and the changing organisational setting. A model is proposed using fuzzy logic to handle incomplete and uncertain knowledge; as well as to combine criteria within a conceptual model from which "real-worth" evaluations can be performed. This model provides a systematic approach to guide the decision maker in the deployment of e-business and emerging technologies in the industry. After discussing the main findings from a literature review on the use of evaluation frameworks in IT related projects, the paper deals with the proposed framework in detail. The use of empirical data, which was obtained transportation customers to help define the main framework factors, is also discussed. Finally, the paper summarises the main implications for rail freight of customers’s perceptions and stated needs in the e-business domain

Technology transfer in oligopolistic markets with heterogeneous goods

In this paper we study technology transfer (TT) in a duopoly model with heterogeneous goods under quantity and price competition. We prove that some but not all the properties of TT under homogeneous goods are preserved in our framework

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IN OLIGOPOLISTIC MARKETS WITH HETEROGENEOUS GOODS

In this paper we study technology transfer (TT) in a duopoly model with heterogeneous goods under quantity and price competition. We prove that some but not all the properties of TT under homogeneous goods are preserved in our framework.

Music composition based on Artificial Neural Networks

In the recent years, research on Artificial Intelligence has ushered in a new phase of technology evolution. Autonomous systems such as voice assistants or self-driving cars are a present reality as first commercial systems have been already launched to the market. New applications emerge each year as huge amounts of generated data and computational capabilities make the development of accurate and expert systems plausible. This evolution is optimizing processes of many core fields such as agriculture, telecommunications or medicine. A quite technological field such as music is also beginning to notice changes, as recommendation engines, synthesizers and music generation are attractive fields of research with some preliminary results. With this project, we intend to contribute to ease the process of music creation making it more accessible to people. The subject of this project is the design, development and experimentation of an AI engine to generate music. A simple, but pleasant to hear artificially generated melody could serve as a base for people to compose more complex pieces of music. At the same time, the project sheds some light to the nuts and bolts of novel techniques for music composition, as the Long Short Term Memory network selected. The system processes MIDI files and extracts relevant information for training the network. The extracted data has been selected by analyzing the main aspects used in the field of Music Information Retrieval. An online listening test taken by subjects of different musical backgrounds is designed to measure the quality of the artificial composer. The final results prove that pleasant to hear melodies have been composed.Ingeniería de Sistemas Audiovisuale

Hongos fitopatógenos asociados a laurel de cera (morella |pubescens) h&b willd-wilbur

El laurel de cera (Morella pubescens) es una especie leñosa de gran importancia para las comunidades primordialmente en procesos ecológicos, uniéndose a estas propiedades un potencial económico e industrial que se basa en la extracción y comercialización de cera (Barrera, 2003); el aspecto fitosanitario ha sido poco estudiado, sobre todo en lo que a enfermedades se refiere. Teniendo en cuenta lo anterior, en esta investigación se realizó el reconocimiento, aislamiento e identificación de los hongos asociados al laurel de cera; posteriormente se comprobó la patogenicidad de estos por medio de los postulados de koch, además, se evaluó su distribución utilizando un diseño experimental irrestrictamente al azar DIA combinado en el espacio con tres repeticiones. Se identificaron seis hongos de los cuales se encontraron en hoja Cercospora sp., Pestalotia sp. Alternaría sp. y Fumago sp. y en semilla Trichothecium sp., y Nigrospora sp., comprobándose la patogenicidad en cinco géneros Cercospora sp., Pestalotia sp., Alternaría sp., Trichothecium sp., y Nigrospora sp., Asimismo se determinó el mayor porcentaje de severidad de los patógenos fue para Cercospora sp., con 62%, seguido de Alternaria sp., con 50% y por último Pestalotia sp., con 39%. En cuanto a semilla el mayor porcentaje de contaminación fue para Nigrospora sp., con 90% seguido por Trichothecium sp., con 70%. Con relación a la distribución de los patógenos, Fumago sp., y Trichothecium sp., indicaron diferencia significativa entre localidades y Cercospora sp no presento diferencia significativa. Finalmente teniendo en cuenta los resultados, se elaboró un plan de manejo para los patógenos encontrados que causan enfermedades en el laurel

La ciencia y la tecnología en el desarrollo regional

El objetivo de esta ponencia es realizar un primer análisis de las relaciones entre innovación, ciencia y tecnología con el grado de desarrollo regional de España. Y además esbozar los efectos que las política de ciencia y tecnología tienen sobre el potencial de desarrollo científicotécnico de las regiones españolas. Ha sido tradicional señalar la existencia de graves desequilibrios regionales, en términos de renta per cápita, en el interior de España. Más recientemente, sin embargo, se ha constatado que estos desequilibrios -en comparación con los existentes en otros países- no son muy acusados. España parece ser uno de los países con menores desequilibrios regionales internos, en términos de renta per cápita (Esteban,1991). Solamente la antigua República Federal Alemana aparece claramente con una situación más equilibrada. Así lo realmente característico de la situación española, en términos de desarrollo económico, no son las diferencias interiores, sino las que existen en relación al resto de países de la Comunidad Europea

Promoting emotional, social and civic competencies: Educational policies in Spain

This article analyzes Spain’s educational policies in terms of emotional, social, and civic competencies. The need to teach these competencies at school is justified socially and pedagogically, and the way in which these competencies are implemented in Spanish and European school curricula is described. Spain’s main political actions to promote social-emotional education are then described. The article concludes that for these programs to be effective, they must overcome a double challenge related to the practical implementation of competence-based curricula and transversal competencies assessment. Consequently, Europe as well as Spain must redouble their efforts (economic, instrumental, and in terms of assessment) to achieve their educational goals

The acute effect of maximal exercise on central and peripheral arterial stiffness indices and hemodynamics in children and adults

Xavier Melo is supported by a research grant from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Ministry of Education and Science of Portugal (grant: SFRH/ BD/ 70515/ 2010). Nuno M. Pimenta is cofinanced by national funds through the Programa Operacional do Alentejo 2007-2013 (ALENT-07-0262- FEDER-001883)This study compared the effects of a bout of maximal running exercise on arterial stiffness in children and adults. Right carotid blood pressure and artery stiffness indices measured by pulse wave velocity (PWV), compliance and distensibility coefficients, stiffness index α and β (echo-tracking), contralateral carotid blood pressure, and upper and lower limb and central/aortic PWV (applanation tonometry) were taken at rest and 10 min after a bout of maximal treadmill running in 34 children (7.38 ± 0.38 years) and 45 young adults (25.22 ± 0.91 years) having similar aerobic potential. Two-by-two repeated measures analysis of variance and analysis of covariance were used to detect differences with exercise between groups. Carotid pulse pressure (PP; η(2) = 0.394) increased more in adults after exercise (p < 0.05). Compliance (η(2) = 0.385) decreased in particular in adults and in those with high changes in distending pressure, similarly to stiffness index α and β. Carotid PWV increased more in adults and was related to local changes in PP but not mean arterial pressure (MAP). Stiffness in the lower limbs decreased (η(2) = 0.115) but apparently only in those with small MAP changes (η(2) = 0.111). No significant exercise or group interaction effects were found when variables were adjusted to height. An acute bout of maximal exercise can alter arterial stiffness and hemodynamics in the carotid artery and within the active muscle beds. Arterial stiffness and hemodynamic response to metabolic demands during exercise in children simply reflect their smaller body size and may not indicate a particular physiological difference compared with adults.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Clustering Vertex-Weighted Graphs by Spectral Methods

Spectral techniques are often used to partition the set of vertices of a graph, or to form clusters. They are based on the Laplacian matrix. These techniques allow easily to integrate weights on the edges. In this work, we introduce a p-Laplacian, or a generalized Laplacian matrix with potential, which also allows us to take into account weights on the vertices. These vertex weights are independent of the edge weights. In this way, we can cluster with the importance of vertices, assigning more weight to some vertices than to others, not considering only the number of vertices. We also provide some bounds, similar to those of Chegeer, for the value of the minimal cut cost with weights at the vertices, as a function of the first non-zero eigenvalue of the p-Laplacian (an analog of the Fiedler eigenvalue)