Habitat and development. Exploring paths of educational innovation in architecture and urbanism

Han pasado dos décadas desde que aparecieron las primeras asignaturas que incorporaban la habitabilidad básica o la cooperación al desarrollo en la formación del arquitecto en España. Desde entonces, las escuelas de arquitectura han ido incorporando contenidos que son cada vez más demandados, tanto por la sociedad como por los propios alumnos. La crisis económica iniciada en 2008, o los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible aprobados en 2015 por Naciones Unidas, nos deben hacer reflexionar sobre la centralidad de estos temas en la formación de la arquitectura y el urbanismo. Desde el año de su creación, en 2001, la asignatura optativa Hábitat y desarrollo se ha propuesto visibilizar la arquitectura social como una parte importante en la formación del arquitecto, en la que se prioriza el proceso arquitectónico, íntimamente relacionado con el habitar (el habitante, los hábitos y su relación con el lugar), frente al producto (el objeto, el edificio, como una síntesis formal de esa arquitectura). En la asignatura se hace una lectura del papel que la cooperación al desarrollo puede jugar en la formación del arquitecto. La participación ciudadana es otro de los temas transversales que se incorporan en la asignatura, formando a los estudiantes en técnicas específicamente aplicables al campo de la arquitectura y del urbanismo. Hábitat y desarrollo se imparte en el primer semestre de quinto curso del grado en arquitectura de la Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.Habitat and development. Exploring paths of educational innovation in architecture and urbanism. It has been two decades since the first subjects that incorporated basic habitability or development cooperation appeared in the training of the architect in Spain. Since then the schools of architecture have been incorporating content that is increasingly demanded by both society and students themselves. The economic crisis initiated in 2008 or the Sustainable Development Objectives approved in 2015 by the United Nations should make us reflect on the centrality of these issues in the formation of architecture and urbanism. Since the year of its creation, in 2001, the optional Habitat and Development has been proposed to make visible the social architecture as an important part in the architect’s training, in which the architectural process is prioritized, closely related to the habitat (the inhabitant, the habits and their relation to the place), in front of the product (the object, the building, as a formal synthesis of that architecture). The subject makes a reading of the role that development cooperation can play in the training of the architect. Citizen participation is another of the cross-cutting themes that are incorporated into the subject by training students in techniques specifically applicable to the field of architecture and urbanism. Habitat and development is taught in the first semester of fifth year of the degree in architecture of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Los alumnos prefieren diferentes estrategias didácticas de la enseñanza de las ciencias en función de sus características motivacionales

We carried out empirical research into the relationship between students' motivational pattems and their preferences for different teaching procedures in science education. According to the results obtained, students tend to prefer those teaching procedures and strategies that allow their motivational needs to be met and reject those conflicting with them

Design of an analog/digital truly random number generator

An analog-digital system is presented for the generation of truly random (aperiodic) digital sequences. This model is based on a very simple piecewise-linear discrete map which is suitable for implementation using monolithic analog sampled-data techniques. Simulation results are given illustrating the optimum choice of the model parameters. Circuit implementations are reported for the discrete map using both switched-capacitor (SC) and switched-current (SI) techniques. The layout of a SI prototype in a 3-μm n-well double-polysilicon double-metal technology is included

Public spaces and immigration in Seville: building citizenship or reproducing power relationships?

Many studies have focused on the importance of immigrants participating in the public spaces of the cities where they have settled in order to become integrated. Our research, in contrast, demonstrates the importance of contextualizing participation within the framework of the power relationships that justify and give meaning to certain practices of discipline and control. We look at one concrete example in Seville (Spain): the regulation of the Latin American sports leagues of San Jeronimo. This case demonstrates the central role of public space in monitoring and controlling immigrants and in the dynamics of resistance they develop.info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio

A Speech Recognizer based on Multiclass SVMs with HMM-Guided Segmentation

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) is essentially a problem of pattern classification, however, the time dimension of the speech signal has prevented to pose ASR as a simple static classification problem. Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers could provide an appropriate solution, since they are very well adapted to high-dimensional classification problems. Nevertheless, the use of SVMs for ASR is by no means straightforward, mainly because SVM classifiers require an input of fixed-dimension. In this paper we study the use of a HMM-based segmentation as a mean to get the fixed-dimension input vectors required by SVMs, in a problem of isolated-digit recognition. Different configurations for all the parameters involved have been tested. Also, we deal with the problem of multi-class classification (as SVMs are initially binary classifers), studying two of the most popular approaches: 1-vs-all and 1-vs-1

Research on nonlinear and quantum optics at the photonics and quantum information group of the University of Valladolid

We outline the main research lines in Nonlinear and Quantum Optics of the Group of Photonics and Quantum Information at the University of Valladolid. These works focus on Optical Solitons, Quantum Information using Photonic Technologies and the development of new materials for Nonlinar Optics. The investigations on optical solitons cover both temporal solitons in dispersion managed fiber links and nonparaxial spatial solitons as described by the Nonlinear Helmholtz Equation. Within the Quantum Information research lines of the group, the studies address new photonic schemes for quantum computation and the multiplexing of quantum data. The investigations of the group are, to a large extent, based on intensive and parallel computations. Some associated numerical techniques for the development of the activities described are briefly sketched

SVMs for Automatic Speech Recognition: a Survey

Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are, undoubtedly, the most employed core technique for Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). Nevertheless, we are still far from achieving high-performance ASR systems. Some alternative approaches, most of them based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), were proposed during the late eighties and early nineties. Some of them tackled the ASR problem using predictive ANNs, while others proposed hybrid HMM/ANN systems. However, despite some achievements, nowadays, the preponderance of Markov Models is a fact. During the last decade, however, a new tool appeared in the field of machine learning that has proved to be able to cope with hard classification problems in several fields of application: the Support Vector Machines (SVMs). The SVMs are effective discriminative classifiers with several outstanding characteristics, namely: their solution is that with maximum margin; they are capable to deal with samples of a very higher dimensionality; and their convergence to the minimum of the associated cost function is guaranteed. These characteristics have made SVMs very popular and successful. In this chapter we discuss their strengths and weakness in the ASR context and make a review of the current state-of-the-art techniques. We organize the contributions in two parts: isolated-word recognition and continuous speech recognition. Within the first part we review several techniques to produce the fixed-dimension vectors needed for original SVMs. Afterwards we explore more sophisticated techniques based on the use of kernels capable to deal with sequences of different length. Among them is the DTAK kernel, simple and effective, which rescues an old technique of speech recognition: Dynamic Time Warping (DTW). Within the second part, we describe some recent approaches to tackle more complex tasks like connected digit recognition or continuous speech recognition using SVMs. Finally we draw some conclusions and outline several ongoing lines of research