Ship weather routing using pathfinding algorithms: the case of Barcelona – Palma de Mallorca

Weather ship routing has become a recognized measure to target safe, sustainable and economical ship activities. Academic research has focused the ship routing optimization through pathfinding algorithms which take into account the meteo-oceanographic forecasts (i.e. wind, waves or currents predictions). This contribution shows the results of the numerical simulations carried out during the development of a weather ship routing applied to a ferry service in the Mediterranean Sea: Barcelona – Palma de Mallorca. From a methodological point of view, the pathfinding A* algorithm is applied to optimize the travel time considering the wave action. Under severe weather conditions, a reduction of the 6% of the travel time is obtained comparing the optimized route and the minimum distance route. The results show also a non-significant correlation between the travel time reduction and wave height. In consequence the benefit of ship routing depends not only of the wave height but also in the spatial sequence of the storm.Postprint (published version

Ship weather routing using pathfinding algorithms: the case of Barcelona – Palma de Mallorca

Weather ship routing has become a recognized measure to target safe, sustainable and economical ship activities. Academic research has focused the ship routing optimization through pathfinding algorithms which take into account the meteo-oceanographic forecasts (i.e. wind, waves or currents predictions). This contribution shows the results of the numerical simulations carried out during the development of a weather ship routing applied to a ferry service in the Mediterranean Sea: Barcelona – Palma de Mallorca. From a methodological point of view, the pathfinding A* algorithm is applied to optimize the travel time considering the wave action. Under severe weather conditions, a reduction of the 7% of the travel time is obtained comparing the optimized route and the minimum distance route. The results show also a non-significant correlation between the travel time reduction and wave height. In consequence the benefit of ship routing depends not only of the wave height but also in the spatial sequence of the storm

Variable readthrough responsiveness of nonsense mutations in hemophilia A

Readthrough therapy relies on the use of small molecules that enable premature termination codons in mRNA open reading frames to be misinterpreted by the translation machinery, thus allowing the generation of full-length, potentially functional proteins from mRNA carrying nonsense mutations. In patients with hemophilia A, nonsense mutations potentially sensitive to readthrough agents represent approximately 16% of the point mutations. The aim of this study was to measure the readthrough effect of different compounds and to analyze the influence of premature termination codon context in selected nonsense mutations causing hemophilia A. To this end, primary fibroblasts from three patients with hemophilia A caused by nonsense mutations (p.W1586X, p.Q1636X and p.R1960X) and Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells transfected with 12 different plasmids encoding mutated F8 (p.Q462X, p.Q1705X, p.Q1764X, p.W274X, p.W1726X, p.W2015X, p.W2131X, p.R1715X, p.R1822X, p.R1960X, p.R2071X and p.R2228X) were treated with gentamicin, geneticin, PTC124, RTC13 or RTC14. Responses were assessed by analyzing not only F8 mRNA expression and FVIII biosynthesis (FVIII antigen by ELISA, western blot and immunofluorescence) but also the FVIII activity (by chromogenic assay). In the patients' fibroblasts, readthrough agents neither stabilized F8 mRNA nor increased FVIII protein or activity to detectable levels. In CHO cells, only in five of the 12 F8 variants, readthrough treatment increased both FVIII antigen and activity levels, which was associated with a reduction in intracellular accumulation of truncated forms and an increase in full-length proteins. These results provide experimental evidence of genetic context dependence of nonsense suppression by readthrough agents and of factors predicting responsiveness

Channelling academic audiences: proposal for a social network for film studies researchers

[EN] After suggesting a network devoted to film studies and a series of analyses on related networks, this study aims at specifying both the idiosyncrasy and the architectural and conceptual development of this kind of platforms, in order to revitalize the interactions of highly participative audiences as are those of researchers.[ES] Este estudio pretende, a partir del planteamiento de una red dedicada a los estudios fílmicos y tras una serie de análisis previos de redes afines, especificar la idiosincrasia así como el desarrollo arquitectónico y conceptual de plataformas de esta índole en pro de dinamizar las interacciones de unas audiencias de marcado carácter participativo como son los colectivos de investigadores.Martorell Fernández, SM.; Canet Centellas, FJ.; Codina Bonilla, L. (2014). Canalizar audiencias académicas: Propuesta de una red social para investigadores en estudios fílmicos. Hipertext.net. 12:1-13. doi:10.2436/20.8050.01.11S1131

Las dificultades del aprendizaje autónomo en un contexto de ABP

Objectives: To identify the difficulties that the students have in a process of selflearning. To elaborate an inventory of the identified difficulties. To diagnose the causes of the difficulties and to point routes or possibilities of overcoming. To evaluate the impact of the difficulties in the end item. Empiric analysis data: 80 students of the two last years in law studies. Academic year 2006-2007. Faculty of Law of the University of Barcelona. Methodology: Ethnografic study. Results: For students who do not have previous experience in ABP the greater difficulty is the disorientation and the anguish that suffer because of the absence of an agenda. They exist difficulties of interaction with the tutors derived from the divergent conception and intelligence of meaning. Finally, difficulties derived from the influence of the surroundings (personal habits) and connected others with the learning styles of each student have been detected.Objetivos: Identificar las dificultades que experimentan los estudiantes en un proceso de aprendizaje autodirigido. Elaborar un inventario y una clasificación de las dificultades identificadas. Diagnosticar las causas de las dificultades y apuntar vías o posibilidades de superación. Evaluar el impacto de las dificultades en el producto final. Datos del análisis empírico: Participan en el estudio un total de 80 estudiantes de los dos últimos cursos de la licenciatura de Derecho. Curso académico 2006-2007. Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Barcelona. Metodología de trabajo: Estudio etnográfico. Resultados: Para los estudiantes que no tienen experiencia previa en ABP la mayor dificultad es la desorientación y la angustia que sufren ante la ausencia de un temario. Existen dificultades de interacción con los tutores derivadas de la divergente concepción e inteligencia de significados. Finalmente, se han detectado dificultades derivadas de la influencia del entorno (hábitos personales) y otras conectadas con los estilos de aprendizaje de cada estudiante

Cryopreservation of unrelated donor hematopoietic stem cells: the right answer for transplantations during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Cryopreservation was recommended to ensure continuity of unrelated donor (UD) hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) during COVID-19 pandemic. However, its impact on clinical outcomes and feasibility was not well known. We compared 32 patients who underwent UD HSCT using cryopreserved peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) during the COVID-19 pandemic with 32 patients who underwent UD HSCT using fresh PBSC in the previous period. Median neutrophil engraftment was 17.5 and 17.0 days with cryopreserved and fresh grafts, respectively. Non-significant delays were found in platelet recovery days (25.5 versus 19.0; P = 0.192) and full donor chimerism days (35.0 and 31.5; P = 0.872) using cryopreserved PBSC. The rate of acute graft-versus-host disease at 100 days was 41% (95% CI [21-55%]) in cryopreserved group versus 31% (95% CI [13-46%]) in fresh group (P = 0.380). One-hundred days progression-relapse free survival and overall survival did not differ significantly. During COVID-19 pandemic, six frozen UD donations were not transfused and logistical and clinical issues regarding cryopreservation procedure, packaging, and transporting appeared. In summary, UD HSCT with cryopreserved PBSC was safe during this challenging time. More efforts are needed to ensure that all frozen grafts are transplanted and cryopreservation requirements are harmonized

CIBERER : Spanish national network for research on rare diseases: A highly productive collaborative initiative

Altres ajuts: Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII); Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.CIBER (Center for Biomedical Network Research; Centro de Investigación Biomédica En Red) is a public national consortium created in 2006 under the umbrella of the Spanish National Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII). This innovative research structure comprises 11 different specific areas dedicated to the main public health priorities in the National Health System. CIBERER, the thematic area of CIBER focused on rare diseases (RDs) currently consists of 75 research groups belonging to universities, research centers, and hospitals of the entire country. CIBERER's mission is to be a center prioritizing and favoring collaboration and cooperation between biomedical and clinical research groups, with special emphasis on the aspects of genetic, molecular, biochemical, and cellular research of RDs. This research is the basis for providing new tools for the diagnosis and therapy of low-prevalence diseases, in line with the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) objectives, thus favoring translational research between the scientific environment of the laboratory and the clinical setting of health centers. In this article, we intend to review CIBERER's 15-year journey and summarize the main results obtained in terms of internationalization, scientific production, contributions toward the discovery of new therapies and novel genes associated to diseases, cooperation with patients' associations and many other topics related to RD research

A joint model for parsing syntactic and semantic dependencies

This paper describes a system that jointly parses syntactic and semantic dependencies, presented at the CoNLL-2008 shared task (Surdeanu et al., 2008). It combines online Peceptron learning (Collins, 2002) with a parsing model based on the Eisner algorithm (Eisner, 1996), extended so as to jointly assign syntactic and semantic labels. Overall results are 78.11 global F1, 85.84 LAS, 70.35 semantic F1. Official results for the shared task (63.29 global F1; 71.95 LAS; 54.52 semantic F1) were significantly lower due to bugs present at submission time.Peer Reviewe

Segmentation in Kansei Engineering Studies Based on the Emotional Response

Socioeconomic and demographic data of participants are often collected when performing a Kansei Engineering study for stratification purposes. This paper offers an alternative stratification procedure, directly based on the emotional response that participants give to prototypes. This approach can deliver groups that are more meaningful for the Kansei Engineering study. Socioeconomic and demographic data (among other kinds of data) can then be used to characterize the obtained emotional groups

Segmentation in Kansei Engineering Studies Based on the Emotional Response

Socioeconomic and demographic data of participants are often collected when performing a Kansei Engineering study for stratification purposes. This paper offers an alternative stratification procedure, directly based on the emotional response that participants give to prototypes. This approach can deliver groups that are more meaningful for the Kansei Engineering study. Socioeconomic and demographic data (among other kinds of data) can then be used to characterize the obtained emotional groups