Predicting human preferences using the block structure of complex social networks

With ever-increasing available data, predicting individuals' preferences and helping them locate the most relevant information has become a pressing need. Understanding and predicting preferences is also important from a fundamental point of view, as part of what has been called a "new" computational social science. Here, we propose a novel approach based on stochastic block models, which have been developed by sociologists as plausible models of complex networks of social interactions. Our model is in the spirit of predicting individuals' preferences based on the preferences of others but, rather than fitting a particular model, we rely on a Bayesian approach that samples over the ensemble of all possible models. We show that our approach is considerably more accurate than leading recommender algorithms, with major relative improvements between 38% and 99% over industry-level algorithms. Besides, our approach sheds light on decision-making processes by identifying groups of individuals that have consistently similar preferences, and enabling the analysis of the characteristics of those groups

Solar integration in a district heating and cooling network

The purpose of this project is to perform an analysis of the feasibility of integrating solar energy into a district network, that supplies the demand of the domestic hot water, space heating and cooling. The project is divided into two main parts: the first part makes an exposition of the district networks, their situation in Spain, as well as the main solar heating and cooling systems and their components. The second part is the case of study where the district network is defined and the performance of the solar installation model are analysed, as well as the most significant elements that make up the system are presented.Ingeniería de la Energí

Genesis and development of the four parish centers of the Coya polygon (Vigo, 1953-1981)

[Resumen] Este artículo relata la historia de los cuatro centros parroquiales del polígono de Coya (Vigo), una parte significativa de la ciudad que, a pesar de haber sido proyectada durante los años cincuenta, no se acabó de construir hasta bien entrados los años ochenta. Durante este tiempo, los centros parroquiales fueron trascendiendo su función litúrgica primaria, y a través de unas arquitecturas abiertas que sufrieron la variación de sus programas, la escasez económica y los vaivenes sociales, colaboraron en el cosido del nuevo tejido urbano con la ciudad existente. Hoy en día, siguen aportando a Coya buena parte de su identidad.[Abstract] This article tells the story of the four parish centers of the Coya polygon (Vigo), a significant part of the city which, despite having been designed in the fifties, was not finished until well into the eighties. During this time, the parish centers were transcending their liturgical function, and through open architectures that suffered a variation of its programs, economic scarcity and social fluctuations, collaborated on the new urban tissue stitched with the existing city. Today, they continue to make to Coya good part of their identity

The university extension as a dynamizer of the complex social function of the university

En los últimos años las universidades españolas han empezado a asumir la necesidad de redefinir su función social con respecto a los problemas vinculados al hábitat, preguntándose cómo integrar los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) en sus tres distintos ámbitos de acción: la investigación, la formación y la extensión universitaria. Si bien es necesaria una lectura crítica de los ODS, al estar estos vinculados todavía a la idea de ‘crecimiento sostenible’, lo cierto es que este compromiso internacional (así como otros que se alinean con sus Objetivos) ofrece una oportunidad para reflexionar sobre la docencia y la investigación arquitectónicas, vinculándolas a una revisión en profundidad de los modelos urbanos y territoriales que permitan avanzar en equidad social en el uso del espacio y hacia la recuperación del equilibrio territorial. La experiencia desarrollada en el marco del grupo de investigación Aula Digital de la Ciudad (ADICI) demuestra que efectivamente las escuelas de arquitectura pueden dar respuesta a los problemas socialmente relevantes que se les propongan o pueden ellas mismas formular problemas socialmente relevantes e involucrar a los distintos grupos sociales que constituyen una comunidad.In the last years, Spanish universities have begun to accept the need for redefining their social function regarding the problems related to the habitat, asking themselves how to integrate the Objectives of Sustainable Development (ODS in its Spanish acronym) in the three different spheres of action: research, education and university extension. Although it is neccessary a critical reading of the ODS since they are still linked to the idea of ‘sustainable growth’, the truth is that this international agreement (like others sided with its Objectives) offers an opportunity to think deeply about architectural teaching and researching, connecting them to an in-depth revision of the urban and territorial models that allow for moving forward in social equity regarding space use and recovering the territorial equilibrium. The experience developed within the framework of the Aula Digital de la Ciudad (ADICI) research group shows that schools of architecture can effectively respond to socially relevant problems proposed to them or they can formulate socially relevant problems themselves and involve the different social groups that make up a communit

Eficiència relativa del cross-over respecte del disseny de grups paral·lels

L'objectiu del projecte és estudiar el benefici en la planificació d'un disseny "cross-over" comparat amb el disseny de grups paral·lels en quant a eficiència relativa, que es defineix com el quocient L'objectiu del projecte és estudiar el benefici en la planificació d'un disseny "cross-over" comparat amb el disseny de grups paral•lels en quant a eficiència relativa,que es defineix com el quocient entre la grandària de mostra d'un paral•lel i la d'un disseny "cross-over" o, equivalentment, el quocient de les variàncies de les respostes respectives

Ecological and Sociodemographic Determinants of House Infestation by Triatoma infestans in Indigenous Communities of the Argentine Chaco

The Gran Chaco ecoregion, a hotspot for Chagas and other neglected tropical diseases, is home to >20 indigenous peoples. Our objective was to identify the main ecological and sociodemographic determinants of house infestation and abundance of Triatoma infestans in traditional Qom populations including a Creole minority in Pampa del Indio, northeastern Argentina.A cross-sectional survey determined house infestation by timed-manual searches with a dislodging aerosol in 386 inhabited houses and administered questionnaires on selected variables before full-coverage insecticide spraying and annual vector surveillance. We fitted generalized linear models to two global models of domestic infestation and bug abundance, and estimated coefficients via multimodel inference with model averaging.Most Qom households were larger and lived in small-sized, recently-built, precarious houses with fewer peridomestic structures, and fewer livestock and poultry than Creoles’. Qom households had lower educational level and unexpectedly high residential mobility. House infestation (31.9%) was much lower than expected from lack of recent insecticide spraying campaigns and was spatially aggregated. Nearly half of the infested houses examined had infected vectors. Qom households had higher prevalence of domestic infestation (29.2%) than Creoles’ (10.0%), although there is large uncertainty around the adjusted OR. Factors with high relative importance for domestic infestation and/or bug abundance were refuge availability, distance to the nearest infested house, domestic insecticide use, indoor presence of poultry, residential overcrowding, and household educational level.Our study highlights the importance of sociodemographic determinants of domestic infestation such as overcrowding, education and proximity to the nearest infested house, and corroborates the role of refuge availability, domestic use of insecticides and household size. These factors may be used for designing improved interventions for sustainable disease control and risk stratification. Housing instability, household mobility and migration patterns are key to understanding the process of house (re)infestation in the Gran Chaco.Fil: Gaspe, Maria Sol. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Provecho, Yael Mariana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Cardinal, Marta Victoria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Fernandez, Maria del Pilar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Gurtler, Ricardo Esteban. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; Argentin

Discrete typing units of Trypanosoma cruzi identified in rural dogs and cats in the humid Argentinean Chaco

The discrete typing units (DTUs) of Trypanosoma cruzi that infect domestic dogs and cats have rarely been studied. With this purpose we conducted a cross-sectional xenodiagnostic survey of dog and cat populations residing in 2 infested rural villages in Pampa del Indio, in the humid Argentine Chaco. Parasites were isolated by culture from 44 dogs and 12 cats with a positive xenodiagnosis. DTUs were identified from parasite culture samples using a strategy based on multiple polymerase-chain reactions. TcVI was identified in 37 of 44 dogs and in 10 of 12 cats, whereas TcV was identified in 5 dogs and in 2 cats -a new finding for cats. No mixed infections were detected. The occurrence of 2 dogs infected with TcIII -classically found in armadillos- suggests a probable link with the local sylvatic transmission cycle involving Dasypus novemcinctus armadillos and a potential risk of human infection with TcIII. Our study reinforces the importance of dogs and cats as domestic reservoir hosts and sources of various DTUs infecting humans, and suggests a link between dogs and the sylvatic transmission cycle of TcIII.Fil: Enriquez, Gustavo Fabián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; ArgentinaFil: Cardinal, Marta Victoria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; ArgentinaFil: Orozco, Maria Marcela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; ArgentinaFil: Lanati, L.. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; ArgentinaFil: Schijman, Alejandro Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; ArgentinaFil: Gurtler, Ricardo Esteban. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; Argentin

Detection of polyclonality among clinical isolates from prosthetic joint infections

Prosthetic joint infection (PJI) is an increasingly important health concern in the Western world due to the rising number of joint arthroplasties. Although most infections are considered to be monomicrobial, the introduction of sonication procedures has led to an increase in the detection of polymicrobial infections. To date, no published studies have investigated the presence of different clones of the same species in the infected patient. The objective of this study was to analyze whether the phenomenon of polyclonality, or the appearance of different clones in the same sample, occurs in PJI. Bacteria isolated by sonication of the retrieved implant from patients with theoretically monomicrobial PJI were included in the study. Two techniques (random amplified polymorphic DNA [RAPD] and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization–time of flight [MALDI-TOF] mass spectrometry) were used to determine the presence of several clones in the same sample. Results were analyzed to determine bacterial species and infection type (acute versus chronic). RAPD showed a predominance of polyclonal cases (16 of 19). However, when performing the analysis with MALDI-TOF, all cases were shown to be polyclonal. We were unable to establish any relationship between the two methodologies. Polyclonality is a common phenomenon in acute and chronic PJI. Further studies are needed to establish the potential implications of this phenomenon on patient outcomesThis work was supported by a grant from the Spanish MINECO (no. MAT2013-48224-C2-2-R). J.E. received travel grants from Pfizer, Leti, and bioMérieux and research grants from Pfizer and Wyet

Molecular epidemiology of domestic and sylvatic Trypanosoma cruzi infection in rural northwestern Argentina

Genetic diversity of Trypanosoma cruzi populations and parasite transmission dynamics have been well documented throughout the Americas, but few studies have been conducted in the Gran Chaco ecoregion, one of the most highly endemic areas for Chagas disease, caused by T. cruzi. In this study, we assessed the distribution of T. cruzi lineages (identified by PCR strategies) in Triatoma infestans, domestic dogs, cats, humans and sylvatic mammals from two neighbouring rural areas with different histories of transmission and vector control in northern Argentina. Lineage II predominated amongst the 99 isolates characterised and lineage I amongst the six isolates obtained from sylvatic mammals. T. cruzi lineage IIe predominated in domestic habitats; it was found in 87% of 54 isolates from Tr. infestans, in 82% of 33 isolates from dogs, and in the four cats found infected. Domestic and sylvatic cycles overlapped in the study area in the late 1980s, when intense domestic transmission occurred, and still overlap marginally. The introduction of T. cruzi from sylvatic into domestic habitats is likely to occur very rarely in the current epidemiological context. The household distribution of T. cruzi lineages showed that Tr. infestans, dogs and cats from a given house compound shared the same parasite lineage in most cases. Based on molecular evidence, this result lends further support to the importance of dogs and cats as domestic reservoir hosts of T. cruzi. We believe that in Argentina, this is the first time that lineage IIc has been isolated from naturally infected domestic dogs and Tr. infestans.Fil: Cardinal, Marta Victoria. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Lauricella, Marta A.. Dirección Nacional de Instituto de Investigación. Administración Nacional de Laboratorio e Instituto de Salud “Dr. C.G. Malbrán”. Instituto Nacional de Parasitología “Dr. M. Fatala Chabén”; ArgentinaFil: Ceballos, Leonardo A.. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; ArgentinaFil: Lanati, Leonardo. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; ArgentinaFil: Marcet, Paula Lorena. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Levin, Mariano Jorge. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; ArgentinaFil: Kitron, Uriel D.. Emory University; Estados UnidosFil: Gurtler, Ricardo Esteban. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Schijman, Alejandro Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; Argentin

Understanding the Meaning of Conformity to Feminine Norms in Lifestyle Habits and Health: A Cluster Analysis

Background: Gender roles impact different spheres of life and lead women to behavioral patterns and lifestyle habits associated with femininity, generating important differences between men and women in health. The present study analyzed relationships between conformity to the feminine norms and different lifestyle indicators: Educational level, marital status, alcohol consumption, tobacco consumption, sleeping hours, social support, and physical activity. Additionally, cluster analysis was developed in order to identify different patterns of gender role conformity. Methods: The sample was made up of 347 women age 18–70 from Spain. Data collection was conducted during 2014. Results: Multiple logistic regression analyses produced odds ratios showing that women with lower feminine role conformity were more likely to use tobacco and alcohol, but less likely to share their lives with someone. Cluster analysis found four different profiles of gender role conformity related to different patterns of alcohol consumption and marital status. Conclusions: Conformity to feminine norms was associated with basic affective conditions such as sharing life with others and with alcohol and tobacco consumption, but not with physical activity, social support, and sleep duration. Whereas tobacco and alcohol use have important health implications, public health systems should pay attention to gender-related variables in order to design and implement specific prevention programs