A Family of Heat Functions as Solutions of Indeterminate Moment Problems

We construct a family of functions satisfying the heat equation and show how they can be used to generate solutions to indeterminate moment problems. The following cases are considered: log-normal, generalized Stieltjes-Wigert, and q-Laguerre

Supramolecular Fullerene Materials

With its unique physical and chemical properties, buckminsterfullerene C60 is becoming an attractive functional component for incorporation into three-dimensional molecular assemblies and supramolecular arrays with potential applications as advanced materials. In this article, we discuss the self-organization of C60 derivatives into ordered fullerene thin films using Langmuir techniques. Subsequently, it is shown how metal ion complexation at a crown ether site in tight proximity to the fullerene surface perturbs the electronic structure of the carbon sphere. Covalently modified fullerenes are used for the construction of interlocked molecules, such as rotaxanes and catenanes, with fascinating topologies. Finally, the formation of a C60-containing tetracationic cyclophane by PtII-directed self-assembly of two di(pyridyl)methanofullerene moieties is presented. These recent advances have become possible only through the development of a new synthetic methodology, which provides controlled, regioselective access to multiply functionalized fullerene derivatives

Incorporating boundary conditions in a stochastic volatility model for the numerical approximation of bond prices

Producción CientíficaIn this paper, we consider a two-factor interest rate model with stochastic volatil-ity, and we assume that the instantaneous interest rate follows a jump-diffusionprocess. In this kind of problems, a two-dimensional partial integro-differentialequation is derived for the values of zero-coupon bonds. To apply standardnumerical methods to this equation, it is customary to consider a boundeddomain and incorporate suitable boundary conditions. However, for thesetwo-dimensional interest rate models, there are not well-known boundary con-ditions, in general. Here, in order to approximate bond prices, we propose newboundary conditions, which maintain the discount function property of thezero-coupon bond price. Then, we illustrate the numerical approximation ofthe corresponding boundary value problem by means of an alternative directionimplicit method, which has been already applied for pricing options. We testthese boundary conditions with several interest rate pricing models.MEC-FEDER Grant MTM2017-85476-C2-P, Junta de Castilla y León Regional Grants VA041P17 (with European FEDERFunds), VA138G18 y VA148G1

Diseño de un plan de marketing para Almacenes Buen Hogar de la ciudad de Riobamba, provincia de Chimborazo.

El diseño del Plan de Marketing para Almacenes Buen Hogar de la Ciudad de Riobamba, Provincia de Chimborazo, en el período 2018 se realizó con la finalidad de establecer estrategias y tácticas para incrementar las ventas. Se utilizó técnicas de investigación como la observación para obtener información preliminar del almacén, encuestas que fueron aplicadas a los habitantes de la provincia de Chimborazo con la finalidad de conocer gustos y preferencias de los clientes; a los trabajadores para determinar las debilidades existentes en el almacén. Se identificó que Almacenes Buen Hogar no realiza promociones o publicidad de sus productos, razón por la cual no ha podido abarcar el mercado nacional, además los vendedores no tratan al cliente con cordialidad y amabilidad y desconocen las características de los electrodomésticos. En conclusión, tenemos que el plan de marketing se diseñó con la finalidad de llegar de un modo eficaz a los clientes actuales y potenciales brindando un servicio de calidad, con personal de ventas capacitado, realizando publicidad y promocionando los productos para que la marca se posesione en el mercado provincial y nacional. Se recomienda a la gerencia poner en práctica el presente Plan de Marketing y establecer medidas correctivas para mejorar la atención a los clientes, ya que una deficiente atención, pone en riesgo que el cliente busque a la competencia para adquirir sus artefactos.The design of Marketing Plan for Almacenes Buen Hogar in Riobamba city, Chimborazo province, during the period 2018, it was made with the purpose of establishing strategies and tactics to increase sales. A research technique such as observation was applied to obtain preliminary information from the warehouse. Surveys were applied to the population of Chimborazo province to know tastes and preferences of the clients; to the workers to determine the weaknesses in the warehouse. It was identified that Almacenes Buen Hogar does not perform promotions or advertising of its products, which is the reason, it has not been able to cover the national market; in addition the sellers do not treat the customer with cordiality and kindness and do not know the characteristics of the appliances. In conclusion we have that the marketing plan was designed in order to effectively reach its current and potential customers by providing a quality service, with trained sales personnel, advertising and promoting products for the brand to be known in the provincial and national market. Management is recommended to put into practice this Marketing Plan and establish corrective actions to improve customer service; a poor attention puts the customer at risk to look for competition to acquire there the devices

MEPSAnd: Minimum Energy Path Surface Analysis over n-dimensional surfaces.

Summary: Understanding biophysical phenomena from the approach of molecular simulation is becoming the state-of-art in many research and technology development fields. Energy surfaces with more than 3 dimensions (2 coordinates and energy) are now computationally accessible, yet interpreting the information they offer is not straightforward and the tasks involved very time-consuming. Here we present MEPSAnd, an open source GUI-based program that natively calculates minimum energy paths across energy surfaces of an arbitrary number of dimensions. In addition to the multidimensional analysis of path through lowest barriers, MEPSAnd can also automatically calculate a finite series of suboptimal paths. To allow the efficient interpretation of results, MEPSAnd offers three distinct plotting solutions: i) energy profiles, ii) coordinate projections and iii) network projections. GUI-independent pipelines are also supported via direct python scripting. Therefore, MEPSAnd is a powerful user friendly tool that streamlines path-finding tasks on n-dimensional energy surfaces.pre-print1996 K

Evaluating the pharmacological response in fluorescence microscopy images: The Δm algorithm

Current drug discovery procedures require fast and effective quantification of the pharmacological response evoked in living cells by agonist compounds. In the case of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), the efficacy of a particular drug to initiate the endocytosis process is related to the formation of endocytic vesicles or endosomes and their subsequent internalisation within intracellular compartments that can be observed with high spatial and temporal resolution by fluorescence microscopy techniques. Recently, an algorithm has been proposed to evaluate the pharmacological response by estimating the number of endosomes per cell on time series of images. However, the algorithm was limited by the dependence on some manually set parameters and in some cases the quality of the image does not allow a reliable detection of the endosomes. Here we propose a simple, fast and automated image analysis method?the ?m algorithm- to quantify a pharmacological response with data obtained from fluorescence microscopy experiments. This algorithm does not require individual object detection and computes the relative increment of the third order moment in fluorescence microscopy images after filtering with the Laplacian of Gaussian function. It was tested on simulations demonstrating its ability to discriminate different experimental situations according to the number and the fluorescence signal intensity of the simulated endosomes. Finally and in order to validate this methodology with real data, the algorithm was applied to several time-course experiments based on the endocytosis of the mu opioid receptor (MOP) initiated by different agonist compounds. Each drug displayed a different ?m sigmoid time-response curve and statistically significant differences were observed among drugs in terms of efficacy and kinetic parameters

Salud Emocional en el Daño Cerebral Adquirido

Sufrir un daño neurológico, puede llegar a alterar la salud emocional, dado que provoca importantes alteraciones físicas y cognitivas que afectan a las distintas áreas de la vida de los pacientes. El objetivo principal de este estudio ha sido conocer el nivel de Inteligencia Emocional, Auto-estima, Resiliencia y Calidad de vida en personas con Daño Cerebral Adquirido (DCA), en comparación con personas sin dicho daño. Método: Para ello, se llevó a cabo un estudio descriptivo, comparativo y de corte transversal, entre un grupo clínico (N=22) y un grupo control (N=22). Se utilizó un cuestionario sociodemográfico y de bienestar ad hoc y las escalas de Autoestima de Rosenberg (RSES), de Calidad de Vida (EuroQol-5D), de Resiliencia (CD-RISC) y de Inteligencia Emocional (TMMS-24). Resultados: Tras realizar los análisis estadísticos, hallamos diferencias significativas en la calidad de vida (p=.001) y en la claridad emocional (p=.03), manteniendo una relación significativa entre ellas en ambos grupos. En el resto de las variables, autoestima, resiliencia, atención y reparación, no hallamos diferencias. Conclusiones: Podemos concluir con relación al grupo clínico, que poseen menor calidad de vida y una menor claridad emocional respecto al grupo sin daño, pudiendo utilizar estos resultados para trabajar la inteligencia emocional dada su influencia en la calidad de vida

Dynamic Facial Emotion Recognition Oriented to HCI Applications

Producción CientíficaAs part of a multimodal animated interface previously presented in [38], in this paper we describe a method for dynamic recognition of displayed facial emotions on low resolution streaming images. First, we address the detection of Action Units of the Facial Action Coding System upon Active Shape Models and Gabor filters. Normalized outputs of the Action Unit recognition step are then used as inputs for a neural network which is based on real cognitive systems architecture, and consists on a habituation network plus a competitive network. Both the competitive and the habituation layer use differential equations thus taking into account the dynamic information of facial expressions through time. Experimental results carried out on live video sequences and on the Cohn-Kanade face database show that the proposed method provides high recognition hit rates.Junta de Castilla y León (Programa de apoyo a proyectos de investigación-Ref. VA036U14)Junta de Castilla y León (programa de apoyo a proyectos de investigación - Ref. VA013A12-2)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Grant DPI2014-56500-R

Two New Strategies for Pricing Freight Options by Means of a Valuation PDE and by Functional Bounds

Producción CientíficaFreight derivative prices have been modeled assuming that the spot freight follows a particular stochastic process in order to manage them, like freight futures, forwards and options. However, an explicit formula for pricing freight options is not known, not even for simple spot freight processes. This is partly due to the fact that there is no valuation equation for pricing freight options. In this paper, we deal with this problem from two independent points of view. On the one hand, we provide a novel theoretical framework for pricing these Asian-style options. In this way, we build a partial differential equation whose solution is the freight option price obtained from stochastic delay differential equations. On the other hand, we prove lower and upper bounds for those freight options which enables us to estimate the option price. In this work, we consider that the spot freight rate follows a general stochastic diffusion process without restrictions in the drift and volatility functions. Finally, using recent data from the Baltic Exchange, we compare the described bounds with the freight option prices.Junta de Castilla y León (grants VA148G18 and VA138G18)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (grant MTM2017-85476-C2-P