Control of Bloat in Genetic Programming by Means of the Island Model

This paper presents a new proposal for reducing bloat in Genetic Programming. This proposal is based in a well-known parallel evolutionary model: the island model. We firstly describe the theoretical motivation for this new approach to the bloat problem, and then we present a set of experiments that gives us evidence of the findings extracted from the theory. The experiments have been performed on a representative problem extracted from the GP field: the even parity 5 problem. We analyse the evolution of bloat employing different settings for the parameters employed. The conclusion is that the Island Model helps to prevent the bloat phenomenon

Desarrollo de un sistema de formación a través de Internet para la Academia de Seguridad Pública de Extremadura

In this article the approaches, methodologies, developments and use of the services of an on-line education system are exposed. This system was developed for the training of the policemen, firemen and volunteers of civil defense, as part of the annual plans of training of the Academia de Seguridad Pública de Extremadura, in Spain. The training courses through Internet were possible thanks to two research agreements between the University of Extremadura and the Junta de Extremadura in 2002 and 2003. These courses are totally integrated in Internet with a set of advanced multimedia technologies, allowing interaction of the user, remote evaluation, self-evaluation, control and educational monitoring, communication with the teaching staff, and so on.En este artículo se exponen los planteamientos, metodologías, desarrollos y utilización de los servicios de educación a distancia a través de Internet realizados para la formación de los agentes de policía local, bomberos y voluntarios de protección civil, como parte de los planes de formación anuales de la Academia de Seguridad Pública de la Junta de Extremadura, en España. Los cursos de formación a distancia así desarrollados, que en su origen se debieron a un convenio de investigación Universidad de Extremadura – Junta de Extremadura, vienen impartiéndose desde el año 2002, y están totalmente integrados en Internet mediante un conjunto de avanzadas tecnologías multimedia, permitiendo interacción del usuario, evaluación a distancia, auto-evaluación, control y supervisión docente, comunicación con el profesorado, etc

Desarrollo de un sistema de formación a través de Internet para la Academia de Seguridad Pública de Extremadura

In this article the approaches, methodologies, developments and use of the services of an on-line education system are exposed. This system was developed for the training of the policemen, firemen and volunteers of civil defense, as part of the annual plans of training of the Academia de Seguridad Pública de Extremadura, in Spain. The training courses through Internet were possible thanks to two research agreements between the University of Extremadura and the Junta de Extremadura in 2002 and 2003. These courses are totally integrated in Internet with a set of advanced multimedia technologies, allowing interaction of the user, remote evaluation, self-evaluation, control and educational monitoring, communication with the teaching staff, and so on.En este artículo se exponen los planteamientos, metodologías, desarrollos y utilización de los servicios de educación a distancia a través de Internet realizados para la formación de los agentes de policía local, bomberos y voluntarios de protección civil, como parte de los planes de formación anuales de la Academia de Seguridad Pública de la Junta de Extremadura, en España. Los cursos de formación a distancia así desarrollados, que en su origen se debieron a un convenio de investigación Universidad de Extremadura – Junta de Extremadura, vienen impartiéndose desde el año 2002, y están totalmente integrados en Internet mediante un conjunto de avanzadas tecnologías multimedia, permitiendo interacción del usuario, evaluación a distancia, auto-evaluación, control y supervisión docente, comunicación con el profesorado, etc

Metaheuristic approaches for optimal broadcasting design in metropolitan MANETs

11th International Conference on Computer Aided Systems Theory. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, February 12-16, 2007Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) are composed of a set of communicating devices which are able to spontaneously interconnect without any pre-existing infrastructure. In such scenario, broadcasting becomes an operation of tremendous importance for the own existence and operation of the network. Optimizing a broadcasting strategy in MANETs is a multiobjective problem accounting for three goals: reaching as many stations as possible, minimizing the network utilization, and reducing the duration of the operation itself. This research, which has been developed within the OPLINK project (http://oplink.lcc.uma.es), faces a wide study about this problem in metropolitan MANETs with up to seven different advanced multiobjective metaheuristics. They all compute Pareto fronts of solutions which empower a human designer with the ability of choosing the preferred configuration for the network. The quality of these fronts is evaluated by using the hypervolume metric. The obtained results show that the SPEA2 algorithm is the most accurate metaheuristic for solving the broadcasting problem.Publicad

Processing acoustic images for the exploitation of fish farms

This work presents a processing methodology that uses data from a SONAR sensor located on a HROV to support the exploitation and management of fish farms.Peer Reviewe

Fine-grained parallelization of fitness functions in bioinformatics optimization problems: gene selection for cancer classification and biclustering of gene expression data

ANTECEDENTES: las metaheurísticas se utilizan ampliamente para resolver grandes problemas de optimización combinatoria en bioinformática debido al enorme conjunto de posibles soluciones. Dos problemas representativos son la selección de genes para la clasificación del cáncer y el agrupamiento de los datos de expresión génica. En la mayoría de los casos, estas metaheurísticas, así como otras técnicas no lineales, aplican una función de adecuación a cada solución posible con una población de tamaño limitado, y ese paso involucra latencias más altas que otras partes de los algoritmos, lo cual es la razón por la cual el tiempo de ejecución de las aplicaciones dependerá principalmente del tiempo de ejecución de la función de aptitud. Además, es habitual encontrar formulaciones aritméticas de punto flotante para las funciones de fitness. De esta manera, una paralelización cuidadosa de estas funciones utilizando la tecnología de hardware reconfigurable acelerará el cálculo, especialmente si se aplican en paralelo a varias soluciones de la población. RESULTADOS: una paralelización de grano fino de dos funciones de aptitud de punto flotante de diferentes complejidades y características involucradas en el biclustering de los datos de expresión génica y la selección de genes para la clasificación del cáncer permitió obtener mayores aceleraciones y cómputos de potencia reducida con respecto a los microprocesadores habituales. CONCLUSIONES: Los resultados muestran mejores rendimientos utilizando tecnología de hardware reconfigurable en lugar de los microprocesadores habituales, en términos de tiempo de consumo y consumo de energía, no solo debido a la paralelización de las operaciones aritméticas, sino también gracias a la evaluación de aptitud concurrente para varios individuos de la población en La metaheurística. Esta es una buena base para crear soluciones aceleradas y de bajo consumo de energía para escenarios informáticos intensivos.BACKGROUND: Metaheuristics are widely used to solve large combinatorial optimization problems in bioinformatics because of the huge set of possible solutions. Two representative problems are gene selection for cancer classification and biclustering of gene expression data. In most cases, these metaheuristics, as well as other non-linear techniques, apply a fitness function to each possible solution with a size-limited population, and that step involves higher latencies than other parts of the algorithms, which is the reason why the execution time of the applications will mainly depend on the execution time of the fitness function. In addition, it is usual to find floating-point arithmetic formulations for the fitness functions. This way, a careful parallelization of these functions using the reconfigurable hardware technology will accelerate the computation, specially if they are applied in parallel to several solutions of the population. RESULTS: A fine-grained parallelization of two floating-point fitness functions of different complexities and features involved in biclustering of gene expression data and gene selection for cancer classification allowed for obtaining higher speedups and power-reduced computation with regard to usual microprocessors. CONCLUSIONS: The results show better performances using reconfigurable hardware technology instead of usual microprocessors, in computing time and power consumption terms, not only because of the parallelization of the arithmetic operations, but also thanks to the concurrent fitness evaluation for several individuals of the population in the metaheuristic. This is a good basis for building accelerated and low-energy solutions for intensive computing scenarios.• Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad y Fondos FEDER. Contrato TIN2012-30685 (I+D+i) • Gobierno de Extremadura. Ayuda GR15011 para grupos TIC015 • CONICYT/FONDECYT/REGULAR/1160455. Beca para Ricardo Soto Guzmán • CONICYT/FONDECYT/REGULAR/1140897. Beca para Broderick CrawfordpeerReviewe

Fish abundance estimation with imaging sonar in semi-intensive aquaculture ponds

To know the abundance of fishes and their size distribution in the semi-intensive rearing systems in traditional ponds is an aspect key to plan and manage efficiently the sales lots. Usually this information is obtained by means of sampling which mandatory supposes a direct catch and stressful and time consuming management of fishes. Therefore, in this work we propose the use of non-invasive procedures based on multibeam sonars or imaging sonars to count and size the fishes in the ponds. For that, we use a commercial technology portable-fixed multibeam imaging sonar and estimate the abundance in ponds of a gilt-head seabream (Sparus aurata) fishfarm from sonar image analysis and adapting statistical methodologies traditionally applied for bird abundance estimation. Additionally, a simulation software was developed to emulate the fish aggregation contained in the rearing ponds. This computer program allows the calculation of an abundance correction factor which depends on the transducer beam size in relation to the pond size. The results indicate that the estimation is as accurate as the obtained by the fishfarm manager using traditional sampling methods and additionally it is possible to obtain a realistic function of the size distribution which allows estimate the biomass by size contained in the rearing ponds.This work was supported by KTTSeaDrones project (0622_KTTSEADRONES_5_E), cofunded by the European Regional Development Fund, ERDF, through the Interreg V-A Spain-Portugal program (POCTEP) 2014–2020. We would like to express our gratitude to Rafael Rodríguez Sierra (Manager of ‘Salinas del Astur’) for his willingness to carry out all the experiments of the KTTSeaDrones project at the ‘Salinas del Astur’ facilities. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Huelva/ CBUA

Experiencia de coordinación con el método de la clase al revés en grados de Ingeniería Informática

En este trabajo se presenta una experiencia de implantación progresiva de la metodología de clase al revés en los dos primeros cursos comunes a dos grados de Ingeniería Informática en la Escuela Politécnica de la Universidad de Extremadura. A lo largo de los dos años que ha durado la experiencia, vertebrada con dos proyectos de innovación docente, han participado 13 asignaturas y 22 profesores de distintas áreas de conocimiento. El principal objetivo de este trabajo es explicar cómo se ha implantado esta experiencia para afrontar el reto de coordinación que supone involucrar a varias asignaturas con profesores con distintos niveles de conocimiento y aplicación de la clase al revés en sus asignaturas. La colaboración entre el profesorado ha sido fundamental para el aprendizaje y para el desarrollo de materiales y actividades adecuados para cada asignatura. Una buena ejecución de estos proyectos debería llevar a que la metodología sobreviva en las aulas más allá de la finalización de los proyectos docentes. Así, otra de las contribuciones del trabajo es medir el impacto que ha tenido esta metodología dos cursos después de la finalización de los proyectos. Además, se presentarán las lecciones aprendidas y que pueden ayudar a poner en marcha proyectos similares donde intervienen muchos profesores y asignaturas.In this paper we present an experience of progressive implementation of the flipped classroom methodology. We introduced changes in the two first common courses of two Degrees in Computer Science at Polytechnic School of University of Extremadura. The experience lasted for two years and it was vertebrated over two teaching innovation projects, involving 13 subjects and 22 teachers from different fields of knowledge. The main objective of this work is to explain how this experience was implemented to face the coordination challenge that arise when involving several subjects, and teachers with different levels of knowledge and application of the flipped classroom. Collaboration among teachers was essential for learning and developing appropriate materials and activities. A good execution of these projects should make the methodology survives in classrooms beyond completion of the teaching projects. So, another contribution of the work is to measure the impact of the methodology two courses after the completion of the projects. In addition, we enumerate some lessons learned willing to help similar projects, where many teachers and subjects are involved

Optimization Algorithms for Large-Scale Real-World Instances of the Frequency Assignment Problem

Nowadays, mobile communications are experiencing a strong growth, being more and more indispensable. One of the key issues in the design of mobile networks is the Frequency Assignment Problem (FAP). This problem is crucial at present and will remain important in the foreseeable future. Real world instances of FAP typically involve very large networks, which can only be handled by heuristic methods. In the present work, we are interested in optimizing frequency assignments for problems described in a mathematical formalism that incorporates actual interference information, measured directly on the field, as is done in current GSM networks. To achieve this goal, a range of metaheuristics have been designed, adapted, and rigourously compared on two actual GSM networks modeled according to the latter formalism. In order to generate quickly and reliably high quality solutions, all metaheuristics combine their global search capabilities with a local-search method specially tailored for this domain. The experiments and statistical tests show that in general, all metaheuristics are able to improve upon results published in previous studies, but two of the metaheuristics emerge as the best performers: a population-based algorithm (Scatter Search) and a trajectory based (1+1) Evolutionary Algorithm. Finally, the analysis of the frequency plans obtained offers insight about how the interference cost is reduced in the optimal plans.Publicad

Pantothenate Rescues Iron Accumulation in Pantothenate Kinase-Associated Neurodegeneration Depending on the Type of Mutation

Neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation (NBIA) is a group of inherited neurologic disorders in which iron accumulates in the basal ganglia resulting in progressive dystonia, spasticity, parkinsonism, neuropsychiatric abnormalities, and optic atrophy or retinal degeneration. The most prevalent form of NBIA is pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration (PKAN) associated with mutations in the gene of pantothenate kinase 2 (PANK2), which is essential for coenzyme A (CoA) synthesis. There is no cure for NBIA nor is there a standard course of treatment. In the current work, we describe that fibroblasts derived from patients harbouring PANK2 mutations can reproduce many of the cellular pathological alterations found in the disease, such as intracellular iron and lipofuscin accumulation, increased oxidative stress, and mitochondrial dysfunction. Furthermore, mutant fibroblasts showed a characteristic senescent morphology. Treatment with pantothenate, the PANK2 enzyme substrate, was able to correct all pathological alterations in responder mutant fibroblasts with residual PANK2 enzyme expression. However, pantothenate had no effect on mutant fibroblasts with truncated/incomplete protein expression. The positive effect of pantothenate in particular mutations was also confirmed in induced neurons obtained by direct reprograming of mutant fibroblasts. Our results suggest that pantothenate treatment can stabilize the expression levels of PANK2 in selected mutations. These results encourage us to propose our screening model as a quick and easy way to detect pantothenate-responder patients with PANK2 mutations. The existence of residual enzyme expression in some affected individuals raises the possibility of treatment using high dose of pantothenate.Instituto de Salud Carlos III FIS PI16/00786Junta de Andalucía CTS-5725, BIO-122Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica BFU2015-64536-