El paisaje sonoro como cápsula del tiempo: Un proyecto creativo basado en los sonidos de la primera estación de trenes de Cuenca

This article reflects on the changing environment through the passage of time and how certain technologies for a creative proposal allow the preservation and transmission of a significant part of that ephemeral heritage for future generations. The general purpose of this particular project is aimed to achieve the sound synthesis of a specific and representative cityscape as the old train station in Cuenca –located in the heart of the city– that could be preserved and reproduced as an unique document of a present time, ascertainable in the future: a memory that interpret sound as a time capsule. This soundscape was made to mark the arrival of the high speed train in 2010 to a brand new station in the outskirts of the city. Therefore, the goal of this research was focused on achieving a synthetic document that provided a sound memory capable of reflecting the significant social, cultural and logistical features, of what was until then the only railway communication symbol in the city of Cuenca from 1883 to the first decade of the 21st century.Este artículo reflexiona sobre la transformación del entorno a través del paso del tiempo y cómo determinadas tecnologías al servicio de una propuesta creativa permiten la preservación y transmisión de una parte significativa de ese efímero patrimonio a generaciones futuras. Dentro de ese propósito general se presenta este proyecto particular orientado a la realización de la síntesis sonora de un paisaje urbano tan concreto como representa la estación de trenes convencionales de Cuenca –ubicada en el centro de la ciudad– que pudiera ser conservado y reproducido como un singular documento de un presente contrastable en el tiempo futuro: una memoria que interpretase el sonido como una cápsula del tiempo. Nuestro paisaje sonoro se realizó con motivo de la llegada oficial del tren de alta velocidad en 2010 a una nueva estación construida en el extrarradio de la ciudad. El objetivo de esta investigación se centró, por tanto, en generar un documento sintético que ofreciera una memoria sonora que reflejara los rasgos significativos sociales, culturales y logísticos del que fue hasta entonces el único símbolo de la comunicación ferroviaria en la ciudad de Cuenca desde 1883 hasta el final de la primera década del siglo XXI

Inquiry based learning: why buying a car with a tree included? Enhancing science and mathematic learning

International reports reveal a deficient situation in relation to science and mathematics learning, which can be considered as an obstacle for the education of literate and informed citizens and the qualification and the preparation of future scientists and engineers. This situation may be partly attributed to the way science and mathematics are taught at school. Research on effective teaching approaches shows that inquiry based learning (IBL) improves students’ engagement and motivation for science and mathematics learning and promotes the development of process skills, critical thinking and conceptual understanding of some science and mathematics topics. The present work describes the design and implementation of an instructional approach for enhancing science and mathematics learning through IBL. The instructional approach is based on the design of an interdisciplinary task which starts by challenging students through the analysis of an advertisement. The initial scenario engages students in an investigation process to look for evidence and understanding while acquiring meaningful learning of key science topics and mathematical tools. The task also takes advantage of current technological resources to facilitate and support the overall inquiry process. (Orig.

MODDALS Methodology for Designing Layered Ontology Structures

Global ontologies include common vocabularies to provide interoperability among different applications. These ontologies require a balance of reusability-usability to minimise the ontology reuse effort in different applications. To achieve such a balance, reusable and usable ontology design methodologies provide guidelines to design and develop layered ontology networks. Layered ontology networks classify into different abstraction layers the domain knowledge relevant to many applications (common domain knowledge) and the domain knowledge relevant only to certain application types (variant domain knowledge). This knowledge classification is performed from scratch by domain experts and ontology engineers. This process is a heavy workload, making it difficult to design the layered structures of reusable and usable global ontologies. Considering how common and variant software features are classified when designing Software Product Lines (SPLs), we argue that SPL engineering techniques can facilitate the domain knowledge classification taking as reference existing ontologies. This paper presents a methodology that provides guidelines to design the layered structure of reusable and usable ontology networks called MODDALS. In contrast to previous methods, MODDALS applies SPL engineering techniques to systematically (1) identify the ontology common and variant domain knowledge and (2) classify it into different abstraction layers taking as reference existing ontologies. This approach complements domain experts’ and ontology engineers’ expertise, preventing them from classifying the domain knowledge from scratch facilitating the design of the layered ontology structure. MODDALS methodology is evaluated in the design of the layered structure of a reusable and usable global ontology for the energy domain. The results show that MODDALS enables to classify the domain knowledge taking as reference existing ontologies

Quality of metadata in open data portals

During the last decade, numerous governmental, educational or cultural institutions have launched Open Data initiatives that have facilitated the access to large volumes of datasets on the web. The main way to disseminate this availability of data has been the deployment of Open Data catalogs exposing metadata of these datasets, which are easily indexed by web search engines. Open Source platforms have facilitated enormously the labor of institutions involved in Open Data initiatives, making the setup of Open Data portals almost a trivial task. However, few approaches have analyzed how precisely metadata describes the associated datasets. Taking into account the existing approaches for analyzing the quality of metadata in the Open Data context and other related domains, this work contributes to the state of the art by extending an ISO 19157 based method for checking the quality of geographic metadata to the context of Open Data metadata. Focusing on metadata models compliant with the Data Catalog Vocabulary proposed by W3C, the proposed extended method has been applied for the evaluation of the Open Data catalog of the Spanish Government. The results have been also compared with those obtained by the Metadata Quality Assessment methodology proposed at the European Data Portal

Relative efficiency and validity properties of a visual analogue vs a categorical scaled version of the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis (WOMAC) Index: Spanish versions

AbstractObjective: To compare the performance of visual analogue (VAS) vs categorical (CT) scaled versions of the three subscales (pain, stiffness and difficulty) of the WOMAC Index in patients with knee osteoarthritis.Material and methods: Patients with knee OA (at least grade II of Kellgren & Lawrence classification) were treated for a 6-weeks period with an NSAID. The following measures were applied at baseline and after treatment: VAS and CT WOMAC scales, Lequesne Index, pain on VAS, and global assessment by patient and observer. Construct Validity was determined by correlation of each of the subscale scores with the other outcomes both at baseline and after treatment (Pearson’s test); responsiveness comparing baseline vs final status by Wilcoxon’s test; reliability by analysis of the internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha at baseline and after the treatment period; and test–retest reliability by Kendall’s Tau-c statistics. Finally, correlation and analysis of the relative efficiency (RE) between the subscales of both formats were tested.Results: Seventy-three (8 men and 65 women) patients with a mean disease duration from first diagnosis of 69 months (3 to 254) completed the study. The following were the observed values for the instruments’ psychometric properties: (1) construct validity: correlations ranged from 0.30 to 0.84 for VAS and 0.27 to 0.77 for CT subscales; (2) responsiveness: achieved P values for the pain, stiffness and difficulty scales were P<0.0001, P=0.002 and P<0.0001 in VAS and P=0.003, P<0.0001 and P=0.001 in CT format respectively; (3) internal consistency: the obtained Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranged from 0.71 to 0.97 for the VAS and 0.64 to 0.95 for the CT subscales; (4) test–retest reliability: correlation coefficients ranged from 0.36 to 0.76 for VAS and 0.34 to 0.52 for CT subscales; and (5) the relative efficiency of the subscales in VAS vs CT format were 2.20, 0.91 and 1.91 for pain, stiffness and difficulty respectively. Significant correlations between subscales in both formats ranging from 0.72 to 0.86 were observed.Conclusion: We have shown that both the VAS version of WOMAC have adequate evaluative and discriminative properties. We found the pain and physical function scales in VAS format and the stiffness scale in CT format to have a slightly better performance in this sample

Design and manufacturing method of prosthetic socket without physical presence of the amputee

Background and aim: Traditional and advanced development methods of prosthetic sockets for limb amputations has been well investigated in the literature but some issues still remain with these procedures: previous experience of the prosthetist, large amount of waste material and hardware and software costs. The aim of the technical note was to propose a low-cost method for digitizing the residual limb and generate its corresponded prosthetic socket; and where the physical presence of the amputee is not a requirement. Technique: Three photographs are required as input to generate 2D profiles of the contour of the residual limb, which define its geometric shape, a 3D model is generated using standard CAD operations; and then, the prosthetic socket is generated using a sculpting software. Discussion: Experimental tests validated the prosthetic socket fit in a real case application; the generated prosthetic socket was comparable with the prosthetic socket currently used by the patient. The proposed method presents a virtual prosthetic socket design procedure that use open-source software and CNC low-cost hardware that facilitates its manufacturing; it also opens the possibility to generate prosthetic socket remotely

Comparison of Gridded DEMs by Buffering

This research was partially funded by the research project "Functional Quality in Digital Elevation Models in Engineering" (https://coello.ujaen.es/investigacion/web_giic/funquality4 dem/, accessed on 28 July 2021) of the State Research Agency. PID2019-106195RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033.Comparing two digital elevation models (DEMs), S1 (reference) and S2 (product), in order to get the S2 quality, has usually been performed on sampled points. However, it seems more natural, as we propose, comparing both DEMs using 2.5D surfaces: applying a buffer to S1 (single buffer method, SBM) or to both S1 and S2 (double buffer method, DBM). The SBM and DBM approaches have been used in lines accuracy assessment and, in this paper, we generalize them to a DEM surface, so that more area of the S2 surface (in the case of the SBM), or the area and volume (in the case of the DBM) that are involved, more similarly are S1 and S2. The results obtained show that across both methods, SBM recognizes the presence of outliers and vertical bias while DBM allows a richer and more complex analysis based on voxel intersection. Both methods facilitate creating observed distribution functions that eliminate the need for the hypothesis of normality on discrepancies and allow the application of quality control techniques based on proportions. We consider that the SBM is more suitable when the S1 accuracy is much greater than that of S2 and DBM is preferred when the accuracy of S1 and S2 are approximately equal.research project "Functional Quality in Digital Elevation Models in Engineering" of the State Research Agency PID2019-106195RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/50110001103