Homo ludens-designing tomorrow's games

In an electronic and cybernetic world, when one is faced with the task of devising different kinds of interaction among participants, it is worth reflecting that, out of the many and various activities which people engage in, there is one kind of activity which has been cultivated, practised and performed for thousands of years by all members of society. This is the playing of games

The phase diagram of QCD with four degenerate quarks

We revisit the determination of the pseudo-critical line of QCD with four degenerate quarks at non-zero temperature and baryon density by the method of analytic continuation. We determine the pseudo-critical couplings at imaginary chemical potentials by high-statistics Monte Carlo simulations and reveal deviations from the simple quadratic dependence on the chemical potential visible in earlier works on the same subject. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for the shape of the pseudo-critical line at real chemical potential, comparing different possible extrapolations.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, 2 table

A review of sample preparation and its influence on pH determination in concrete samples

If we are to monitor the chemical processes in cementitious materials, then pH assays in the pore solutions of cement pastes, mortars, and concretes are of key importance. However, there is no standard method that regulates the sample-preparation method for pH determination. The state-of-the-art of different methods for pH determination in cementitious materials is presented in this paper and the influence of sample preparation in each case. Moreover, an experimental campaign compares three different techniques for pH determination. Its results contribute to establishing a basic criterion to help researchers select the most suitable method, depending on the purpose of the research. A simple tool is described for selecting the easiest and the most economic pH determination method, depending on the objective; especially for researchers and those with limited experience in this field.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Integrated value model for sustainable assessment of school centers construction

Hundreds of new school centers were built in Catalonia between 2000 and 2009. It was a governmental decision in order to solve an endemic lack of centers that in the early 2000s had worsen. Masonry and poured on site reinforced concrete structures were used to build most of these schools as it had been done previously. The novelty was the use of interesting off site construction processes such as prefabricated concrete, steel and wood technologies. These school edifices and their building processes were analyzed in the author’s thesis in 2009. Later in 2011 the author analyzed the lyfe cycle process of the construction of these centers. In this paper the authors assess the sustainability of these schools using a dynamic evaluation tool optimized for this case study. This tool has been defined using the Integrated Value Model for Sustainable Assessment (Modelo Integrado de Valor para una Evaluación Sostenible - MIVES).Postprint (published version

Decision-making through sustainability

From immemorial time, dams have contributed significantly for the progress of civilizations. For this reason, nowadays, there is a vast engineering heritage. Over the years, these infrastructures can present some ordinary maintenance issues associated with their normal operation or with ageing processes. Normally, these problems do not represent an important risk for the structure, but they have to be attended. To do it, owners of dams have to finance many ordinary interventions. As it is impossible to carry out all of them at the same time, managers have to make a decision and select the most “important” ones. However, it is not easy because interventions usually have very different natures (for example: repair a bottom outlet, change gates, seal a crack...) and they cannot use a classical risk analysis for these type of interventions. The authors, who are aware this problem, present, in this paper, a multi-criteria decision-making system to prioritize these interventions with the aim of providing engineers a useful tool, with which they can prioritize the interventions from the most important to the least. To do it, the authors have used MIVES. This tool defines the Prioritization Index for the Management of Hydraulic Structures (PIMHS), which assesses, in two phases, the contribution to sustainability of each intervention. The first phase measures the damage of the dam, and the second measures the social, environmental and economic impacts. At the end of the paper, a case of study is presented where some interventions are evaluated with PIMHS.Postprint (published version

Modelling Discourse-related terminology in OntoLingAnnot’s ontologies

Recently, computational linguists have shown great interest in discourse annotation in an attempt to capture the internal relations in texts. With this aim, we have formalized the linguistic knowledge associated to discourse into different linguistic ontologies. In this paper, we present the most prominent discourse-related terms and concepts included in the ontologies of the OntoLingAnnot annotation model. They show the different units, values, attributes, relations, layers and strata included in the discourse annotation level of the OntoLingAnnot model, within which these ontologies are included, used and evaluated

Infrastructure, innovation and industry as solutions for breaking inequality vicious cycles

Currently, poverty and inequality are crucial social issues around the world. They demand objective evaluations with the purpose of defining policies and prioritizing actions. Most of the times the most important problem lies on the fact that individuals under poverty circumstances or belonging to vulnerable collectives cannot escape these conditions by themselves and need external assistance or interventions. Another added difficulty is that both poverty and inequality can be studied from different angles and require a multidimensional approach whose definition is not straightforward. There exists a vicious cycle defined by a collection of determinants or events that lead to a phenomenon in which various disadvantages work circularly so that it is impossible for individuals or households to break the cycle. In this context, setting the background in which these vicious cycles arise can be helpful in order to conduct in-depth studies as a first step to establishing possible solutions. Even though many researchers have proposed alternative schemes for the poverty’s vicious circle, none has been introduced for inequality. In this contribution, a meaningful and integrated cycle is defined for inequality at two different levels: first of all, at an individual level; secondly, at a collective level in which a certain group is made vulnerable. This cycle includes similar parameter as those comprised in the poverty cycle such as income, access to education and access to healthcare. However, it additionally places emphasis on other aspects such as participation in politics and access to leadership positions. Besides, a conceptual and analytical framework is built, whose objective is to describe ways in which infrastructure, innovation and industry can help interrupt the continuation of the cycle. This model integrates a collection of different measures that is to be potentially helpful for policy makers. Additionally, the frame accounts for not only the fight of current existing cycles, but also of future generations ones, hence considering sustainability dimensions.Postprint (published version

Bond behavior of self consolidating concrete

The new generation of innovative projects has led to the use of greater amounts of reinforcement and the development of concrete with specific characteristics. It is necessary to use a material that ensures the uniformity of the cross section, as well as the adherence of the existing reinforcement, and due to this, the self-consolidating concrete becomes an technique alternative has great potential to achieve these properties. The aim of this paper is to analyze the bond behavior of self-consolidating concrete that was obtained by means of the Beam Test performed within a large experimental campaign of characterization. Four types of SCC were studied with two strength levels (40 MPa and 60MPa) and two different types of granular skeletons, using two specimens at each age (3, 7, and 28 days). All specimens were tested with a corrugated steel bar 10 mm in diameter. The results show that the adhesion tension independently of resistance presents a rapidly evolving at 7 days reached 95% of the total adhesion by 28 days.Postprint (published version

La responsabilidad de entender y el deber de hacerse entender: el texto reglamentario como diálogo entre normadores y normados

En el ámbito de los textos de ingeniería civil existen diferentes géneros, con sus correspondientes características. Uno de esos tipos es el que se centra en la reglamentación técnica. ..

Enriching Ontologies with Multilingual Information

Multilinguality in ontologies has become an impending need for institutions worldwide that have to deal with data and linguistic resources in different natural languages. Since most ontologies are developed in one language, obtaining multilingual ontologies implies to localize or adapt them to a concrete language and culture community. As the adaptation of the ontology conceptualization demands considerable efforts, we propose to modify the ontology terminological layer by associating an external repository of linguistic data to the ontology. With this aim we provide a model called Linguistic Information Repository (LIR) that associated to the ontology meta-model allows terminological layer localization