Social Networks, Political Discourse and Polarization during the 2017 Catalan elections

This thesis investigates the political process in Spain and Catalonia during the Catalan election in December 2017. This regional election was unusual because of the independence process in Catalonia and its repression. Two parties, Ciudadanos (anti-independence) and Podemos (ambiguous position) and their leaders’ activity in Twitter was analyzed. It was explored from three perspectives: social networks, lexical and emotional discourse and ideological polarization. Firstly, social networks were used to see the properties of the support communities of both parties. Interestingly unlike Ps, Ciudadanos’ (Cs) metrics of cohesion showed that political communities of this party in Spain and Catalonia were remarkably well integrated. Secondly, using machine learning techniques, discourse cohesiveness of Ps and Cs’ politicians was analyzed regarding the lexical and emotional content of their messages. The results showed that even though Cs’ politicians were more lexically similar, Ps’ were more similar in terms of emotions. Specifically, the study of emotions in the discourse shed light on populist messages from Cs. This party used anger and disgust to take advantage the polarized political scenario. Lastly, with a sample of users (N=2000) in Twitter, the relationship between dispositional emotions and ideological polarization was investigated. Results showed that users predisposed to anger were significantly more polarized and those predisposed to fear were significantly less polarized. Interestingly, even though predisposition to fear decreased polarization, the interaction between fear and anger significantly increased it. These results have interesting implications regarding the increasing opportunities of politicians to target the electorate based on personal characteristics

Low-cost error mitigation by symmetry verification

We investigate the performance of error mitigation via measurement of conserved symmetries on near-term devices. We present two protocols to measure conserved symmetries during the bulk of an experiment, and develop a zero-cost post-processing protocol which is equivalent to a variant of the quantum subspace expansion. We develop methods for inserting global and local symetries into quantum algorithms, and for adjusting natural symmetries of the problem to boost their mitigation against different error channels. We demonstrate these techniques on two- and four-qubit simulations of the hydrogen molecule (using a classical density-matrix simulator), finding up to an order of magnitude reduction of the error in obtaining the ground state dissociation curve.Comment: Published versio

Product Release Forecasting

La predicatbilidad es un area muy desafiante pero al mismo tiempo es muy emocionante porque puede ayudarnos a aprender sobre el futuro. Se nos ha encomendado la tarea de crear un algoritmo para ayudar a los equipos a trabajar mejor. Decidimos crear diferentes soluciones, cada una con sus peculiaridades. Algunos involucran modelos estadísticos y otros modelos de aprendizaje automático. Los datos en los que estamos trabajando están muy sucios y deben tratarse con cuidado. Sin embargo, logramos desarrollar algoritmos con resultados prometedores. En el futuro, es imprescindible mejorar estos algoritmos y pensar en nuevos enfoques.Predictability is a very challenging subject but at the same time is very exciting because it can help us learn about the future. We have been tasked with creating a forecasting algorithm to help teams work better. We decided to create different solutions, each with its peculiarities. Some involve statistical models and other machine learning models. The data we are working on is very dirty and needs to be treated carefully. Nevertheless, we managed to develop algorithms with promising results. In the future, improving these algorithms and thinking of new approaches is a must-do

RIBÉ, R. (1997): Tramas creativas y aprendizaje de lenguas. Prototipos de tareas de tercera generación.

Sin resume

El profesor y el método en la enseñanza de lenguas extranjeras.

Sin resume

Effects of dietary limonene and thymol on the growth and nutritional physiology of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)

Phytogenic compounds such as limonene and thymol have been shown to have growth-promoting properties in farmed animals but studies in fish are scarce. Two Experiments (Experiments I and II) were carried out to investigate the individual effects of dietary limonene and thymol on the growth and nutritional physiology of juvenile Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). In Experiment I, the fish were fed on a commercial diet coated with limonene at 0 (control), 200, 400, and 600 mg kg-1 (ppm), while in Experiment II thymol was supplemented in the diet at 0 (control), 250 and 500 ppm. Our results showed a significant increase in fish weight and weight gain with diets supplemented with 400 and 600 ppm limonene compared to the control. Moreover, the expression of insulin growth factor I (igf-I), mucin-like protein (muc), oligo-peptide transporter I (pept1), lipoprotein lipase (lpl), alkaline phosphatase (alp) and catalase (cat) was up-regulated by dietary limonene. Our results confirm that dietary limonene can enhance the growth of Nile tilapia juveniles through the activation of key genes involved in somatotropic axis-mediated growth, nutrient digestion and antioxidant enzyme defence. Dietary thymol did not seem to influence growth or regulate the same pathways activated by limonene in Nile tilapia juveniles at inclusion levels up to 500 ppm. Overall, the present results suggest that potential growth-promoting effects are dependent upon the phytogenetic itself and its inclusion level

Delta-8 desaturation activity varies among fatty acyl desaturases of teleost fish: high activity in delta-6 desaturases of marine species

The benefits of dietary fish and fish oil are derived from n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) that have beneficial effects in a range of human diseases and pathologies such as cardiovascular and other inflammatory disorders, neural development and neurological pathologies. The precursor of n-3 LC-PUFA, 18:3n-3 does not have the same beneficial effects prompting interest in the pathways of endogenous synthesis of LC-PUFA in vertebrates. The LC-PUFA biosynthesis pathway classically involves Δ6 and Δ5 fatty acyl desaturases (Fad), but it was recently shown that Δ6 Fad in mammals also displayed Δ8 activity demonstrating a possible alternative “Δ8-pathway” for the synthesis of LC-PUFA. Our primary hypothesis was that Δ8 desaturase activity would be a common feature of vertebrate Δ6 Fads, and so the aim of the present study was to determine the ability of teleostei Fads for Δ8 desaturation activity. To this end, cDNAs for Fads from a range of freshwater, diadromous and marine teleost fish species were assayed for Δ8 activity in the heterologous yeast expression system. In summary, the present study has demonstrated that Δ8 desaturation activity was also a characteristic of fish orthologs, although the activity varied notably between freshwater/diadromous and marine fish species, with the latter possessing Fads2-like proteins with Δ8 activity far higher than mammalian FADS2. The data showed that, generally, the fish Fad are technically υ-3 desaturases, with new double bonds introduced 3C beyond a pre-existing double bond. However, the ability of zebrafish and rabbitfish Fads, previously characterised as Δ6/Δ5 bifunctional desaturases, to introduce non-methylene interrupted double bonds in 20:3n-3 and 20:2n-6 suggested that a novel combination of regioselectivity modes operates within these enzymes