Design of Gold Nanohole Arrays for Surface Plasmon Resonance Biosensing

Treballs Finals de Grau de Física, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2020, Tutor: Mauricio MorenoA study of the geometry effects of a SPR device based on a gold array of nanoholes has been done. Firstly, we obtained the dependence between the SPR peak position with the period, the hole’s size and the thickness of the gold film. All this for two types of hole: circular and square shapes. Furthermore, we have simulated the effect of the refractive index of the medium on the reflection spectrum. Effectively, little changes in the refractive index provoke a shift in the SPR peak. It’s the result we expected, because there are many devices based on calculating these changes on the medium through the reflection spectra obtaine

Processing of emotional words in bilinguals: Testing the effects of word concreteness, task type and language status

The present study investigates whether the emotional content of words has the same effect in the different languages of bilinguals by testing the effects of word concreteness, the type of task used, and language status. Highly proficient bilinguals of Catalan and Spanish who learned Catalan and Spanish in early childhood in a bilingual immersion context, and who still live in such a context, performed an affective decision task (Experiment 1) and a lexical decision task (Experiment 2) in both Catalan and Spanish. A different set of Catalan–Spanish bilinguals, who were proficient in English and who learned English after early childhood in an instructional setting, performed a lexical decision task in both Spanish and English (Experiment 3). In both tasks administered throughout the experiments, the experimental stimuli were concrete and abstract words that varied in their emotional connotation (i.e. positive, negative and neutral words) and were presented in the two languages involved. In the affective decision task, participants decided if the words had emotional content or not, and in the lexical decision task they decided if the strings of letters were real words or not. The three experiments also included an unexpected free recall task. Results showed that the emotional content of words affected bilinguals’ performance in all three tasks. In particular, there was a disadvantage in processing for negative words in both the affective and lexical decision tasks, and an advantage for positive words in the lexical decision and free recall tasks. Importantly, language only interacted with the other variables in Experiment 3, suggesting that language status is a relevant factor in determining the extent to which emotional processing has the same characteristics in the two languages

Plan de Autoprotección de una Industria Mediana

Un Plan de Autoprotección es un sistema de control y gestión de la seguridad en el desarrollo de las actividades corporativas. No es simplemente una manera efectiva de establecer protocolos de emergencia, sino que también representa una de las bases para la protección civil de nuestro país. El concepto de autoprotección ha sido forjado a lo largo de muchos años y ha experimentado numerosos cambios. Esto se ve reflejado en la legislación vigente, ya que hay una constante referencia a él en las diferentes leyes y reglamentos. Este proyecto es un ejemplo de un Plan de Autoprotección que se ha desarrollado para un evento puntual, la celebración de una fiesta en una de las salas de las que dispone el Palau de Congressos de Cataluña. Todo el procedimiento que se ha seguido para su elaboración se describe en el Decreto 82/2010, de 29 de junio, por el que se aprueba el catálogo de actividades y centros obligados a adoptar medidas de autoprotección y se fija el contenido de estas medidas

Desarrollo de una web segura

Treballs Finals de Grau d'Enginyeria Informàtica, Facultat de Matemàtiques, Universitat de Barcelona, Any: 2023, Director: Raúl Roca Cánovas[en] In this final degree project, a web application has been developed, analyzed, and implemented using the Vue and Python technologies, with Python being used alongside the Flask framework. The main focus of the web application revolves around cybersecurity. The primary vulnerabilities that can occur in such applications have been identified and studied. The operation of these vulnerabilities and commonly employed strategies to prevent or mitigate their impact has been investigated. The project report provides a detailed explanation of the main attack vectors, presents examples of each of them, and showcases the strategy that has been implemented to counteract them in the developed application. To accomplish this task, the recommendations and guidelines provided by OWASP, a recognized organization in the field of computer security, have been followed. OWASP develops a list of the top 10 most common vulnerabilities and provides guidance on how to address them. Both the project development and the choice of the topic have been carried out with the objective of obtaining a new perspective, tools, and knowledge that can be applied in future projects or work related to software development, due to the importance of cybersecurity in all stages of development, regardless of the specialization or the specific job field, given the current context of an increasingly interconnected and digital world. Data and system protection have become fundamental topics

Prevalence norms for 40,777 Catalan words: An online megastudy of vocabulary size

In this study, we present word prevalence data (i.e., the number of people who know a given word) for 40,777 Catalan words. An online massive visual lexical decision task involving more than 200,000 native speakers of this language was carried out. The characteristics of the participants as well as those of the words which mostly influence word knowledge were examined. Regarding the participants, the analysis of the data revealed that their age was the main factor influencing vocabulary size, followed by their educational level and other variables such as the number of languages spoken and their level of proficiency in Catalan. Concerning the words, by far the most determining factor was lexical frequency, with a minor influence of both length and the size of the orthographic neighborhood. These data mainly agree with those reported in other languages in which the same variables have been analyzed (Dutch, English, and Spanish, thus far). Therefore, the list is increased with Catalan, a language which, due to its use in an essentially bilingual context, is of special interest to researchers interested in the field of bilingualism and second language acquisition

Aprendizaje basado en proyectos en la asignatura de Gráficos por Computador en Ingeniería Informática. Balance de cuatro años de experiencia

En esta comunicación se presenta una experiencia de aplicación de la metodología de Aprendizaje Basado en Proyectos (ABP) en Gráficos por Computador, asignatura optativa de Ingeniería Informática, impartida en la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, realizada los últimos cuatro años (cursos 2004-05 al 2007-08) Se expone la organización y recursos docentes de la asignatura previos al ABP. Los resultados y conculsiones de 15 años de con una organización clásica (teoria, problemas prácticas) nos motivaron a buscar metodologías más activas para el alumno, decidiéndonos por ABP, ofreciéndolo como como un itinerario para cursar la asignatura. Por tanto, en la asignatura se ofrecen dos itinerarios: el de ABP y el de TPPE (Teoría, Problemas Prácticas y Examen), este último basado en la organización clásica de clase magistral, problemas y prácticas, sin aumentar en exceso los recursos docentes de la asignatura. Se muestra la organización de la propuesta ABP en la asignatura y ejemplos de proyectos. Finalmente se cuantifica la carga docente del alumno en ambos itinerarios y del profesorado, así como el número de matriculados por itinerario y el resultado de encuestas a los alumnos. Con 4 años de experiencia podemos obtener las primeras conclusiones, la mayoría positivas y analizar mejoras para próximos cursos.Peer Reviewe

The role of form in masked priming effects in cognate words

Las principales propuestas teóricas sobre el léxico bilingüe asumen dos niveles de representación: el nivel de la representación de la forma (ortográfica y fonológica) y el nivel de representación conceptual (semántico). El grado en que estos dos niveles de representación son compartidos por las dos lenguas ha sido objeto de interés creciente en los últimos años. Distintos estudios utilizando diferentes tareas y paradigmas experimentales han mostrado que el estatus de traducción cognaticia desempeña un papel relevante a la hora de determinar cómo se relacionan las palabras de las dos lenguas en estos dos niveles de representación. Las traducciones cognaticias son pares de palabras que se parecen tanto en la forma como el significado (por ejemplo, arbre-árbol) y contrastan con los falsos amigos (sólo relacionados en la forma; por ejemplo, fleca-fleco) y las traducciones no-cognaticias (sólo comparten su significado; por ejemplo, sorra-arena). En este artículo se revisan una serie de experimentos de priming enmascarado entre lenguas llevados a cabo con bilingües competentes de español y de inglés y de español y catalán. Asimismo, se presenta un experimento realizado con bilingües de español y de catalán, en el que se ha utilizado también el priming enmascarado, manipulando el grado de solapamiento formal entre traducciones cognaticias. Los resultados de este experimento junto con la evidencia revisada sugieren que la semejanza en la forma no puede dar cuenta de los efectos de priming que se observan en palabras cognaticias.Most theoretical proposals about the bilingual lexicon include representations at the levels of form (orthographic and phonological) and meaning (conceptual). The degree of shared representations across languages at either level has been a matter of dispute in recent times. A number of studies using different tasks and experimental paradigms have shown that the cognate status of translations is a relevant factor concerning the relationship between words across languages. Cognate translations are word pairs that share similar form and meaning across two languages (e.g. arbre-árbol), in contrast with so-called false friends (which are only form-related, such as fleca-fleco) and non-cognate translations (which only share their meanings, e.g. sorra-arena). In this article, we review a series of masked priming experiments across languages with competent Spanish-English and Catalan-Spanish bilinguals, and report a new masked priming experiment carried out with Catalan-Spanish bilinguals in which the degree of form overlap between cognate pairs was manipulated. The results of the experiment and the evidence reviewed suggest that form similarity by itself cannot account for the priming effects obtained with cognate words

A locus-specific database for mutations in GDAP1 allows analysis of genotype-phenotype correlations in Charcot-Marie-Tooth diseases type 4A and 2K

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The ganglioside-induced differentiation-associated protein 1 gene (<it>GDAP1</it>), which is involved in the Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT), the most commonly inherited peripheral neuropathy, encodes a protein anchored to the mitochondrial outer membrane. The phenotypic presentations of patients carrying <it>GDAP1 </it>mutations are heterogeneous, making it difficult to determine genotype-phenotype correlations, since the majority of the mutations have been found in only a few unrelated patients. Locus-specific databases (LSDB) established in the framework of the Human Variome Project provide powerful tools for the investigation of such rare diseases.</p> <p>Methods and Results</p> <p>We report the development of a publicly accessible LSDB for the <it>GDAP1 </it>gene. The <it>GDAP1</it> LSDB has adopted the Leiden Open-source Variation Database (LOVD) software platform. This database, which now contains 57 unique variants reported in 179 cases of CMT, offers a detailed description of the molecular, clinical and electrophysiological data of the patients. The usefulness of the <it>GDAP1 </it>database is illustrated by the finding that <it>GDAP1 </it>mutations lead to primary axonal damage in CMT, with secondary demyelination in the more severe cases of the disease.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Findings of this nature should lead to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of CMT. Finally, the <it>GDAP1 </it>LSDB, which is part of the mitodyn.org portal of databases of genes incriminated in disorders involving mitochondrial dynamics and bioenergetics, should yield new insights into mitochondrial diseases.</p