Pla 70.000 : de la gestió de les instal·lacions a l'eficiència energètica

Projecte presentat al Premi a la Qualitat de la Gestió Universitària, convocat pel Consell Social de la UPC, edició 2011.El projecte es basa en la gestió sostenible de les instal∙lacions de calefacció, aigua calenta sanitària, calefacció, equips autònoms de climatització, producció d’aigua freda i il∙luminació de diversos edificis del Campus Nord que han estat seleccionats en base a les possibilitats de maniobrabilitat que ofereixen, i a una avaluació prèvia dels consums i anàlisi de les necessitats reals d’energia. Aquesta gestió sostenible s’ha aconseguit, en primer lloc, mitjançant la implementació d’accions com ara, la reducció horària del funcionament d’equips, la limitació de consignes de temperatura o l’adequació dels rendiments dels equips entre d’altres, i en segon lloc, a través del seguiment exhaustiu dels resultats obtinguts i de la seva relació envers les variables que incideixen directament en els resultats obtinguts.Postprint (author's final draft

Do active commuters feel more competent and vital? A self-organizing maps analysis in university students

University students represent a population that faces high risks regarding physical inactivity. Research suggests that a regular engagement in physical activity (PA) may be more likely established when it leads to the experience of subjective vitality. Subjective vitality, in turn, is more likely achieved through physical activities that individuals feel competent in, and that take place in natural outdoor environments. An activity that may fulfill these conditions is active commuting to and from university (ACU). To examine whether and in which form ACU can combine this promising pattern of aspects, a person-oriented analysis was conducted. The sample contained 484 university students (59.3% females). Leisure-time PA, ACU by walking, ACU by cycling, subjective vitality, PA-related competence and body mass index were included as input variables in a self-organizing maps analysis. For both female and male university students, the identified clusters indicated that students who intensively engaged in ACU did not exhibit subjective vitality levels above average. Consistently, they did not show elevated levels of PA-related competence, which suggests that ACU does not support the perception of their physical abilities. Considerations regarding urban university environments lacking sufficient natural elements finally add to the conclusion that engaging in ACU does not suffice to establish a vitality-supportive and thus sustainable PA behavior. Additionally, the identified clusters illustrate a large heterogeneity regarding the interaction between leisure-time PA, body mass index and subjective vitality

Eficacia y seguridad del adhesivo tisular Tisuacryl en el cierre de la piel de la episiotomía

Se realizó un ensayo clínico fase III, en el Hospital Docente Materno Infantil 10 de Octubre, de Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba, entre julio de 1999 y marzo del 2000, con el objetivo de evaluar la eficacia y seguridad del adhesivo tisular Tisuacryl en el cierre de la piel de la episiotomía. Cada grupo constó de 300 pacientes, de acuerdo a los criterios de inclusión establecidos para el ensayo. En el grupo estudio se presentaron menos molestias en la episiorrafia (95.6 %) que en el grupo control (56.3 %) a los 30 minutos post parto, así como al tercer día posterior al nacimiento (97.6 % vs. 61.3 %). Al séptimo día, los resultados en el afrontamiento, estética y molestias en la herida fueron significativamente mejores con el adhesivo tisular evaluado. Los riesgos relativos de resultados adversos al séptimo día posterior al parto fueron 3.2 veces mayores en relación con afrontamiento y 2.9 veces con la estética no satisfactorias cuando se utilizó catgut cromado al comparar con el Tisuacryl. Para las molestias en la episiorrafia, el riesgo relativo se elevó a 24.2, todos con diferencias estadísticas significativas. Se concluye que el uso del adhesivo tisular Tisuacryl para el cierre de la piel en la episiotomía tiene menor probabilidad de afrontamiento y estética de la herida no satisfactoria y de menor sensación dolorosa en la herida quirúrgica que el catgut cromado.Peer Reviewe

Energy-aware scheduling in virtualized datacenters

The reduction of energy consumption in large-scale datacenters is being accomplished through an extensive use of virtualization, which enables the consolidation of multiple workloads in a smaller number of machines. Nevertheless, virtualization also incurs some additional overheads (e.g. virtual machine creation and migration) that can influence what is the best consolidated configuration, and thus, they must be taken into account. In this paper, we present a dynamic job scheduling policy for power-aware resource allocation in a virtualized datacenter. Our policy tries to consolidate workloads from separate machines into a smaller number of nodes, while fulfilling the amount of hardware resources needed to preserve the quality of service of each job. This allows turning off the spare servers, thus reducing the overall datacenter power consumption. As a novelty, this policy incorporates all the virtualization overheads in the decision process. In addition, our policy is prepared to consider other important parameters for a datacenter, such as reliability or dynamic SLA enforcement, in a synergistic way with power consumption. The introduced policy is evaluated comparing it against common policies in a simulated environment that accurately models HPC jobs execution in a virtualized datacenter including power consumption modeling and obtains a power consumption reduction of 15% with respect to typical policies.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Astrocytic BDNF and TrkB regulate severity and neuronal activity in mouse models of temporal lobe epilepsy

Astrocytes have emerged as crucial regulators of neuronal network activity, synapse formation, and underlying behavioral and cognitive processes. Despite some pathways have been identified, the communication between astrocytes and neurons remains to be completely elucidated. Unraveling this communication is crucial to design potential treatments for neurological disorders like temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). The BDNF and TrkB molecules have emerged as very promising therapeutic targets. However, their modulation can be accompanied by several off-target effects such as excitotoxicity in case of uncontrolled upregulation or dementia, amnesia, and other memory disorders in case of downregulation. Here, we show that BDNF and TrkB from astrocytes modulate neuronal dysfunction in TLE models. First, conditional overexpression of BDNF from astrocytes worsened the phenotype in the lithium-pilocarpine mouse model. Our evidences pointed out to the astrocytic pro-BDNF isoform as a major player of this altered phenotype. Conversely, specific genetic deletion of BDNF in astrocytes prevented the increase in the number of firing neurons and the global firing rate in an in vitro model of TLE. Regarding to the TrkB, we generated mice with a genetic deletion of TrkB specifically in hippocampal neurons or astrocytes. Interestingly, both lines displayed neuroprotection in the lithium-pilocarpine model but only the mice with genetic deletion of TrkB in astrocytes showed significantly preserved spatial learning skills. These data identify the astrocytic BDNF and TrkB molecules as promising therapeutic targets for the treatment of TLE

A dialectometric approach to Romanian intonation

[eng] This paper presents the first dialectometric analysis of intonational variation of standard spo-ken Romanian. The data analysed (26,680 sentences) were gathered within the AMPER-ROM project and the dialectometrical analysis has been carried out with ProDis. The results are consistent with the geolinguistic descriptions of Romanian varieties. ProDis identified two major areas for yes-no questions: a central-eastern one (Moldo-Walachian), with rising con-tours, and a central-western one (Transylvanian, discontinuously continuing over Bukovina to Bessarabia—the Republic of Moldova—), which presents also falling contours. The study suggests that intonational areas are somehow more conservative of and (relatively) independent from segmental dialectal areas

Prosodic distances between different survey sites in Romance-speaking Europe

[eng] The aim of this paper is to classify Romanian dialects from a prosodic point of view within the European Romance-speaking area. The data is part of the Multimedia Atlas of Romance Prosody - AMPER (Contini, 1992) and is analysed dialectometrically by means of ProDis (Elvira-García et al., 2015; Fernández Planas, 2016). The database includes more than 17,000 utterances produced by 48 speakers from 26 survey sites of 15 varieties of 6 Romance languages (Catalan, Spanish, Italian, Sardinian, Friulian and Romanian). The results show that the two main prosodic areas of Romanian (see Roseano, 2016b) remain separate when they are dialectometrized with data from other Romance languages. In addition, if one analyses questions and statements separately, it can be seen that questions allow us to distinguish geoprosodic areas more effectively than statements do (as suggested by previous studies such as Fernández Planas et al., 2015)

Towards a new Catalan dialectal map? Considerations from dialectometrically obtanined prosodic data

En els darrers anys, l’estudi de la prosòdia s’ha vist afavorit per una gran quantitat de treballs realitzats des d’òptiques diferents. En el cas del català, però, gairebé sempre s’han centrat en l’estudi de la varietat barcelonina i s’han obviat les variants dialectals i subdialectals. El projecte AMPER i la seva concreció dedicadaa l’estudi del català (a més d’altres variants romàniques), AMPER-CAT, ha procurat omplir aquest buit a partir de la consideració de frases enunciatives i interrogatives pragmàticament neutres. Amb la tasca descriptiva acabada, els resultats són susceptibles de ser sotmesos a tractament dialectomètric per obtenir una visió global del domini lingüístic a partir estrictament de les dades prosòdiques. Aquest és l’objectiu d’aquest article. L’eina emprada és el programa ProDis, que actualment es desenvolupa al Laboratori de Fonètica de la UB. Els resultats ofereixen un mapa que no coincideix ben bé amb els postulats de la dialectologia catalana tradicional, que no ha treballat amb dades prosòdiques, i permeten relacionar el català amb altres varietats romàniques.During the last years the study of prosody has developed thanks to a huge number of research that have been carried out from different perspectives. Thisnotwithstanding, in the case of Catalan prosodic studies have focused mostly onthe variety spoken in Barcelona and have neglected other dialects. The AMPERproject and its Catalan section (known as AMPER-CAT) have tried to fill this gapby gathering and analysing data of broad focus statements and information-seeking yes-no questions in several Catalan dialects. The descriptive objective of the project has already been achieved. For this reason, the aim of this article is analysing the data with dialectometrical techniques that can provide a global vision of the dialectal configuration of Catalan from a prosodic point of view. Such analysis is carried out by means of ProDis, a dialectometrical tool developed at the Phonetics Laboratory of the University of Barcelona. The results of the analysis do not coincide exactly with traditional dialectometric studies, which have not taken into account prosodic data. Finally, Catalan prosodic data are analysed in the framework of Romance languages. The results provide a map that does not match exactly with the tenets of traditional Catalan dialectology, who has worked with prosodic data and are related to other Romance varieties

Wireless Multisensory Interaction in an Intelligent Rehabilitation Environment

Today, the population is aging, and this is becoming a problem for current health systems, as each day it has to invest more money in treating the elderly. Rehabilitation of elderly patients with physical disabilities is one of these problems that everyday incur greater overhead to health care. This paper provides a gerontechnology-based solution by proposing a multisensory system for rehabilitation in an intelligent environment. The proposal enables helping needed people and thus reducing the cost of health care

Cap a un nou mapa dialectal del català? Consideracions a partir de dades prosòdiques tractades dialectomètricament

En els darrers anys, l'estudi de la prosòdia s'ha vist afavorit per una gran quantitat de treballs realitzats des d'òptiques diferents. En el cas del català, però, gairebé sempre s'han centrat en l'estudi de la varietat barcelonina i s'han obviat les variants dialectals i subdialectals. El projecte AMPER i la seva concreció dedicada a l'estudi del català (a més d'altres variants romàniques), AMPER-CAT, ha procurat omplir aquest buit a partir de la consideració de frases enunciatives i interrogatives pragmàticament neutres. Amb la tasca descriptiva acabada, els resultats són susceptibles de ser sotmesos a tractament dialectomètric per obtenir una visió global del domini lingüístic a partir estrictament de les dades prosòdiques. Aquest és l'objectiu d'aquest article. L'eina emprada és el programa ProDis, que actualment es desenvolupa al Laboratori de Fonètica de la UB. Els resultats ofereixen un mapa que no coincideix ben bé amb els postulats de la dialectologia catalana tradicional, que no ha treballat amb dades prosòdiques, i permeten relacionar el català amb altres varietats romàniques