Introducing Statistical Experimental Designs to Chemical and Industrial Engineering Using Collaborative and Problem Based Learning Approach

This work describes the use of the Collaborative and Problem Based- Project Based Learning (PBL) methodology in a Statistical Experimental Design course for Chemical and Industrial Engineering students at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). The objetives, motivation, and the roles of the teacher and the students in the classroom to get a better understanding of the concepts and examples are explained in detail. Since 2000, there exists in our univesity (UPM) the aim to adapt the curricula to the European Education Framework agreed in Bolonia (1999). This implies modifications which influence among others the teaching methodology, with special emphasis in the self-learning, self-tutoring approach and teamwork. We decided to introduce a Collaborative and PBL approach to convince and motivate the students on the usefulness of the subject they are learning, based in the essential role of real examples, problems and case studies. Besides, to create the students perception that statistics “tools” are an integrated whole rather than a collection of independent parts (closed-boxes) and it is really necessary in other disciplines. We consider these are the key points to the success. The students work in groups of size three and the course is organized around seven tasks as follows: Five main real problems, the analysis and peer review of one scientific article related with some items of the matter, and a project (their own experiment) the students are required to develop mainly in the laboratory of chemistry. At this point it is very important to remark the absolutely necessary collaboration of the teachers of the Chemistry Experimentation subject which provide students with solid technical and scientific training in chemisty. Students prepare a written report and a multimedia presentation as result of their own experimental design, because sometimes one member (randomly selected) of each group, is required to give a presentation of the work providing an additional assessment criteria At the end, the problems, the article peer review and the project cover all the course objectives, and allow the students to integrated newly adquired knowlegde with prior knowlegde and experiences. Different places are used during the course: Each week, to present the materials and the results, the traditional classroom is used (one hour a week). The rest of the time, two hours a week, students work in one of the collaborative classrooms available at ETSII. It contains round tables with three computers with 9 positions each. Therefore, each round table is occupied by three teams. During the last four years, we have experienced an increase in the number of students from 30 to 60 nowadays. We think that this is the maximum number of students to apply the current methodology. An additional goal is evaluate the satisfaction of the students with the collaborative and PBL approach. The methodology for this evaluation is double: first, a qualitative study obtained from interviews with quality groups, integrated by the teacher and four students chosen by their classmates and volunteers and second, a quantitative study based on surveys among all the students to obtain a satisfaction indicator

Depresión resistente al tratamiento. Una revisión actualizada.

Traballo de Fin de Grao en Medicina. Curso 2019-2020.La depresión resistente al tratamiento (DRT) se define como la ausencia de mejoría de los síntomas de la depresión tras la administración de tratamiento antidepresivo adecuado en las dosis y con la duración recomendada. A lo largo de la historia se han ido empleando diferentes criterios para clasificar a los pacientes con DRT, algunos de estos criterios han sido el número de tratamientos empleados, el tipo de tratamientos empleados, el número de fracasos terapéuticos tanto a los fármacos antidepresivos como a las otras opciones terapéuticas, entre otros. En la actualidad, la prevalencia de la DRT es elevada, se estima que el 44% de los pacientes no responde a dos terapias antidepresivas o más y el 33% de los pacientes no responde a cuatro terapias antidepresivas o más. Así mismo, existen múltiples factores de riesgo para la DRT desde el punto de vista clínico, sociodemográfico, biológico y genético. En cuanto al abordaje terapéutico existen diferentes opciones (farmacoterapia y psicoterapia) y en caso de fracaso terapéutico también existen diferentes alternativas.A depresión resistente ao tratamento (DRT) defínese como a ausencia de melloría dos síntomas da depresión tras a administración do tratamento antidepresivo adecuado, nas dosis e coa duración recomendada. Ao longo da historia empleáronse diferentes criterios para clasificar aos pacientes con DRT, algúns destes criterios foron o número de tratamentos empleados, o tipo de tratamento empleado, o número de fracasos terapéuticos tanto aos fármacos antidepresivos coma as outras opcións terapéuticas, entre outros. Na actualidade, a prevalencia da DRT é elevada, estímase que o 44% dos pacientes non responde a dúas terapias antidepresivas ou máis e o 33% dos pacientes non responde a catro terapias antidepresivas ou máis. Así mesmo, existen múltiples factores de risco para a DRT dende o punto de vista clínico, sociodemográfico, biolóxico e xenético. En canto á abordaxe terapéutica existen diferentes opcións (farmacoterapia e psicoterapia) e no caso de fracaso terapéutico tamén existen diferentes alternativas.Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is defined as the absence of improvement in the symptoms of depression following the administration of appropriate antidepressant treatment at the recommended doses and duration. Throughout history, different criteria have been used to classify patients with TRD, some of which have been the number of treatments used, the type of treatments employed, the number of therapeutic failures to both antidepressant drugs and other therapeutic options, among others. Currently, the prevalence of TRD is high, with an estimated 44% of patients not responding to two or more antidepressant therapies and 33% of patients not responding to four or more antidepressant therapies. There are also multiple risk factors for TRD from the clinical, sociodemographic, biological and genetic perspectives. As for the therapeutic approach there are different options (pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy) and in case of therapeutic failure there are also different alternatives

A Service based Development Environment on Web 2.0 Platforms

Governments are investing on the IT adoption and promoting the socalled e-economies as a way to improve competitive advantages. One of the main government’s actions is to provide internet access to the most part of the population, people and organisations. Internet provides the required support for connecting organizations, people and geographically distributed developments teams. Software developments are tightly related to the availability of tools and platforms needed for products developments. Internet is becoming the most widely used platform. Software forges such as SourceForge provide an integrated tools environment gathering a set of tools that are suited for each development with a low cost. In this paper we propose an innovating approach based on Web2.0, services and a method engineering approach for software developments. This approach represents one of the possible usages of the internet of the future

Simulation of academic performance rates, estimation of indicators of subjects and of a complete degree

The purpose of this paper is to present a program written in Matlab-Octave for the simulation of the time evolution of student curricula, i.e, how students pass their subjects along time until graduation. The program computes, from the simulations, the academic performance rates for the subjects of the study plan for each semester as well as the overall rates, which are a) the efficiency rate defined as the ratio of the number of students passing the exam to the number of students who registered for it and b) the success rate, defined as the ratio of the number of students passing the exam to the number of students who not only registered for it but also actually took it. Additionally, we compute the rates for the bachelor academic degree which are established for Spain by the National Quality Evaluation and Accreditation Agency (ANECA) and which are the graduation rate (measured as the percentage of students who finish as scheduled in the plan or taking an extra year) and the efficiency rate (measured as the percentage of credits which a student who graduated has really taken). The simulation is done in terms of the probabilities of passing all the subjects in their study plan. The application of the simulator to Polytech students in Madrid, where requirements for passing are specially stiff in first and second year subjects, is particularly relevant to analyze student cohorts and the probabilities of students finishing in the minimum of four years, or taking and extra year or two extra years, and so forth. It is a very useful tool when designing new study plans. The calculation of the probability distribution of the random variable "number of semesters a student has taken to complete the curricula and graduate" is difficult or even unfeasible to obtain analytically, and this is even truer when we incorporate uncertainty in parameter estimation. This is why we apply Monte Carlo simulation which not only provides illustration of the stochastic process but also a method for computation. The stochastic simulator is proving to be a useful tool for identification of the subjects most critical in the distribution of the number of semesters for curriculum vitae (CV) completion and subsequently for a decision making process in terms of CV planning and passing standards in the University. Simulations are performed through a graphical interface where also the results are presented in appropriate figures. The Project has been funded by the Call for Innovation in Education Projects of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) through a Project of its school Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales ETSII during the period September 2010-September 2011

Implementation and design of a service-based framework to integrate personal and institutional learning environments

The landscape of teaching and learning has changed in recent years because of the application of Information and Communications technology. Among the most representative innovations in this regard are Learning Management Systems. Despite of their popularity in institutional contexts and the wide set of tools and services that they provide to learners and teachers, they present several issues. Learning Management Systems are linked to an institution and a period of time, and are not adapted to learners' needs. In order to address these problems Personal Learning Environments are defined, but it is clear that these will not replace Learning Management Systems and other institutional contexts. Both types of environment should therefore coexist and interact. This paper presents a service-based framework to facilitate such interoperability. It supports the export of functionalities from the institutional to the personal environment and also the integration within the institution of learning outcomes from personal activities. In order to achieve this in a flexible, extensible and open way, web services and interoperability specifications are used. In addition some interoperability scenarios are posed. The framework has been tested in real learning contexts and the results show that interoperability is possible, and that it benefits learners, teachers and institutions.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Fast local search for fuzzy job shop scheduling

In the sequel, we propose a new neighbourhood structure for local search for the fuzzy job shop scheduling problem. This is a variant of the well-known job shop problem, with uncertainty in task durations modelled using fuzzy numbers and where the goal is to minimise the expected makespan of the resulting schedule. The new neighbourhood structure is based in changing the relative order of subsequences of tasks within critical blocks. We study its theoretical properties and provide a makespan estimate which allows to select only feasible neighbours while covering a greater portion of the search space than a previous neighbourhood from the literature. Despite its larger search domain, experimental results show that this new structure notably reduces the computational load of local search with respect to the previous neighbourhood while maintaining or even improving solution quality

Biodiversity of mermitids (Nematoda: mermithidae) parasitoids of aquatic diptera (Simuliidae, culicidae and chironomidae) in Argentina

Fil: Camino, Nora Beatriz. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Centro de Estudios en Parasitología y Vectores (CEPAVE); ArgentinaFil: González, Sandra Elizabeth. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Centro de Estudios en Parasitología y Vectores (CEPAVE); ArgentinaFil: Reboredo, Guillermo R.. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Cátedra de Fisiología Animal; Argentin

Utility and identity: an analysis of two rhetorical strategies in tv advertising

Abstract: Our starting point is the observation that television advertising sometimes attempts to persuade the viewer of the value of a product by showing how useful it will be to him in resolving a problem while, on other occasions, it does this by illustrating how it will help him to construct an identity which will be appreciated by himself and others (in this article, the convention of assuming that the communicator is female and the audience, male, will be followed). In accordance with the reason/tickle theory, the more the advertiser bases her strategy on the utility of the product, the closer her message will be to a prototypical reason ad. In contrast, the more she bases it on the capacity of the product to help the consumer to acquire a glamorous identity, the closer it will be to a prototypical tickle ad. In the first case, the advertisement is intended to address the viewer?s uncertainties directly, informing him efficiently about what is being sold to him and what use or savings it offers him. In the second case, meanwhile, the aim of the advertisement is to transmit the communicative intention of the advertiser and thus capture his attention. It will not, however, resolve the viewer?s uncertainties directly, but will rather base its relevance on its capacity to make him infer an array of weak implicatures which associate the product with a glamorous identity. This paper presents an in-depth analysis of nine advertisements, allowing us to describe in detail some specific cases which respond both to these two prototypes and to various points along the scale between them. The objectives are twofold: First, to offer the researcher a theory which allows him to make a thorough and rigorous analysis of the discursive nature of the television advertisement; and secondly, to use this theory to offer an explanation which responds to these characteristics of the above-mentioned strategies

Emerging and traditional technologies at the service of practicum in primary education grade. A educational intervention proposal

En las siguientes páginas se presenta una propuesta de intervención para el practicum del Grado de Educación Primaria, que pretende el aprovechamiento de las tecnologías para el aprendizaje y el conocimiento (TAC) que parte de las potencialidades de los recursos tradicionales como son la radio y la fotografía para establecer un tratamiento de éstas más innovador y que suponga, al mismo tiempo un tratamiento integral de las emergentes en post de procesos educativos y formativos de calidad, innovadores e inclusivos. Además, partimos de la importancia acuñada, por un lado establecer propuestas de prácticum de calidad y adaptadas a las necesidades formativas actuales; por otro lado al adecuado aprovechamiento de las tecnologías, y en particular de las emergentes; y finalmente a la relevancia de un compromiso activo y compartido en el ámbito educativo, parece oportuno brindar al alumnado de prácticum tareas de aprendizaje integradas que les permitan conocer cómo diseñar un proceso educativo significativo que tengan en cuenta la realidad y el contexto de cada centro educativo. A partir de estas premisas, presentamos en las siguientes líneas un marco teórico que ampara esta necesidad, así como unas pinceladas de desarrollo asentadas en dos ejes vertebrados: la fotografía y la radio; a través de una propuesta metodológica cooperativa, activa y dinamizadora de los agentes que participan en la misma. Nuestra intención es facilitar mecanismos y pautas de intervención adecuadas a la estructura organizativa del prácticum con la finalidad de que sea fácilmente adaptable a diferentes realidades y que tenga una repercusión social significativa en su ámbito de desarrolloIn these pages we present an intervention proposal for the practicum in the Primary Education Grade, which aim is the use of learning and knowledge technology (TAC) in order to promote new and innovative treatment of traditional resources, like radio and photography to establish an emerging and comprehensive treatment in support of a quality, innovative and inclusive educational processes. Furthermore, our start point is, in one hand, the importance of establishing quality practicum proposed, and adapted to current training needs; on the other hand the appropriate use of technology, particularly in emerging; and finally the relevance of an active and collective agreement. Thus, it would seem appropriate to give the practicum students learning tasks to know how to design a meaningful educational process, and reality and context of each school would be taken as the starting point by them. From these premises, in the following lines we present a theoretical framework that protects this need, and some information about vertebrate resources of this practicum proposal: photography and radio; through an active and cooperative methodology and revitalizing agents involved in it. Our intention is to provide appropriate mechanisms for the organizational structure of the practicum, in order to make it easily adaptable to different realities and have a significant social impact on their teacher developmen