The Artificial Intelligence Course at the Faculty of Computer Science in the Polytechnic University of Madrid

This paper presents the experience of teaching an Artificial Intelligence course at the Faculty of Computer Science in the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain. The objective of this course is to introduce the students to this field, to prepare them to contribute to the evolution of the technology, and to qualify them to solve problems in the real world using Artificial Intelligence technology. The curriculum of the Artificial Intelligence course, which is integrated into the Artificial Intelligence Department's program, allows us to educate the students in this sense using the monographic teaching method

Integral field observations of the blue compact galaxy Haro14. Star formation and feedback in dwarf galaxies

(Abridged) Low-luminosity, gas-rich blue compact galaxies (BCG) are ideal laboratories to investigate many aspects of the star formation in galaxies. We study the morphology, stellar content, kinematics, and the nebular excitation and ionization mechanism in the BCG Haro 14 by means of integral field observations with VIMOS in the VLT. From these data we build maps in continuum and in the brighter emission lines, produce line-ratio maps, and obtain the velocity and velocity dispersion fields. We also generate the integrated spectrum of the major HII regions and young stellar clusters identified in the maps to determine reliable physical parameters and oxygen abundances. We find as follows: i) the current star formation in Haro 14 is spatially extended with the major HII regions placed along a linear structure, elongated in the north-south direction, and in a horseshoe-like curvilinear feature that extends about 760 pc eastward; the continuum emission is more concentrated and peaks close to the galaxy center; ii) two different episodes of star formation are present: the recent starburst, with ages $\leq$ 6 Myrs and the intermediate-age clusters, with ages between 10 and 30 Myrs; these stellar components rest on a several Gyr old underlying host galaxy; iii) the H$\alpha$/H$\beta$ pattern is inhomogeneous, with excess color values varying from E(B-V)=0.04 up to E(B-V)=1.09; iv) shocks play a significant role in the galaxy; and v) the velocity field displays a complicated pattern with regions of material moving toward us in the east and north galaxy areas. The morphology of Haro 14, its irregular velocity field, and the presence of shocks speak in favor of a scenario of triggered star formation. Ages of the knots are consistent with the ongoing burst being triggered by the collective action of stellar winds and supernovae originated in the central clusters.Comment: 18 pages, 17 figures. Accepted for publication in A&

Pricing of drugs and donations: options for sustainable equity pricing.

Effective medicines exist to treat or alleviate many diseases which predominate in the developing world and cause high mortality and morbidity rates. Price should not be an obstacle preventing access to these medicines. Increasingly, drug donations have been established by drug companies, but these are often limited in time, place or use. Measures exist which are more sustainable and will have a greater positive impact on people's health. Principally, these are encouraging generic competition; adopting into national legislation and implementing TRIPS safeguards to gain access to cheaper sources of drugs; differential pricing; creating high volume or high demand through global and regional procurement; and supporting the production of quality generic drugs by developing countries through voluntary licenses if needed, and facilitating technology transfer

Probing star formation and feedback in dwarf galaxies. Integral field view of the blue compact galaxy Tololo 1937-423

(Abridged) Blue compact galaxies (BCG) are gas-rich, low-mass, small systems that form stars at unusually high rates. This makes them excellent laboratories for investigating the process of star-formation (SF) at galactic scales and the effects of massive stellar feedback on the interstellar (and intergalactic) medium. We analyzed the BCG Tololo 1937-423 using optical integral field spectroscopy with VIMOS at the Very Large Telescope to probe its morphology, stellar content, nebular excitation and ionization properties, and the kinematics of its warm ionized gas. We found that Tololo 1937-423 is currently undergoing an extended starburst, with nine major $H\alpha$ clumps. The galaxy presents a single continuum peak that is not cospatial with any knot in emission lines, indicating at least two relatively recent episodes of SF. The inhomogeneous dust distribution reaches its maximum roughly at the position of the continuum peak. We found shocked regions in the galaxy outer regions and at the edges of the SF knots. The oxygen abundance is similar in all the SF regions, suggesting a chemically homogeneous ionized interstellar medium over spatial scales of several kpc. The ionized gas kinematics displays an overall regular rotation around a northwest-southeast axis. The morphology of the galaxy and the two different episodes of SF suggest a scenario of triggered (induced by supernova shock waves) SF acting in Tololo 1937-423. The inferred ages for the different SF episodes (~13-80 Myr for the central post-starburst and 5-7 Myr for the ongoing SF) are consistent with triggered SF, with the most recent SF episode caused by the collective effect of stellar winds and supernova explosions from the central post-starburst. The velocity dispersion pattern, with higher velocity dispersions found at the edges of the SF regions, and shocked regions in the galaxy, also favor this scenario.Comment: 16 pages, 18 figures. Accepted for publication in A&

Radion Cosmology in Theories with Universal Extra Dimensions

We discuss cosmology of models with universal extra dimensions, where the Standard Model degrees of freedom live in a $4+n$ dimensional brane, with $n$ compact and small extra spatial dimensions. In these models, the simplest way to obtain the conventional 4-dimensional Planck scale starting with a low string scale is to have also some larger extra dimensions, where only gravity propagates. In such theories, dimensional reduction generically leads to at least two radion fields, one associated with the total volume of the extra spatial dimensions, and the other with the ratio of the sizes of small and large extra dimensions. In this paper, we discuss the impact of the radion fields on cosmology. We emphasize various aspects of radion physics such as radion coupling to the Standard Model fields, bare and dressed radion masses during inflation, dynamical stabilization of radions during and after inflation, radion decay life time and its late dominance in thermal history of the Universe as well as its quantum fluctuations during inflation. We argue that models where the radion plays the role of an inflaton or the inflaton is a brane scalar field, run into problems. We then present a successful inflation model with bulk scalar fields that seems to have all the desired properties. We also briefly discuss the possibility of radion as a cold dark matter candidate.Comment: 37 pages + 3 figure

Lithium in the Hyades L5 brown dwarf 2MASS J04183483+2131275

Aims. From the luminosity, effective temperature and age of the Hyades brown dwarf 2MASS J04183483+2131275 (2M0418), substellar evolutionary models predict a mass in the range 39−55 Jupiter masses (MJup) which is insufficient to produce any substantial lithium burning except for the very upper range >53 MJup. Our goal is to measure the abundance of lithium in this object, test the consistency between models and observations and refine constraints on the mass and age of the object. Methods. We used the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) with its low-dispersion optical spectrograph to obtain ten spectra of 2277 s each covering the range 6300–10 300 Å with a resolving power of R ~ 500. Results. In the individual spectra, which span several months, we detect persistent unresolved Hα in emission with pseudo equivalent widths (pEW) in the range 45–150 Å and absorption lines of various alkalis with the typical strengths found in objects of L5 spectral type. The lithium resonance line at 6707.8 Å is detected with pEW of 18 ± 4 Å in 2M0418 (L5). Conclusions. We determine a lithium abundance of log N(Li) = 3.0 ± 0.4 dex consistent with a minimum preservation of 90% of this element which confirms 2M0418 as a brown dwarf with a maximum mass of 52 MJup. We infer a maximum age for the Hyades of 775 Myr from a comparison with the BHAC15 models. Combining recent results from the literature with our study, we constrain the mass of 2M0418 to 45–52 MJup and the age of the cluster to 580–775 Myr (1σ) based on the lithium depletion boundary method.We thank the referee for a detailed report that improved the quality of this manuscript. This research has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under the grants AYA2015- 69350-C3-2-P and AYA2015-69350-C3-3-P. We thank Yakiv Pavlenko for his calculations of equivalent widths at different temperatures, Isabelle Baraffe for her models, and Eduardo Martín for sharing his results prior to publication. This work is based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), operated on the island of La Palma in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (programme GTC77- 16B led by Pérez Garrido). This research has made use of the Simbad and Vizier databases, operated at the Centre de Données Astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS), and of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System Bibliographic Services (ADS). We thank John Stauffer for kindly providing the optical spectra of the K and M Hyades members published in 1997 (Stauffer et al. 1997a)