Exploration of photonic networks on chip with the University of Ferrara

Modern chips include several processors that communicate through an interconnection network, which has a direct impact on system performance, power consumption and chip area. Recent research points out the great potential of optical networks to reduce on-chip communication latency and energy. We plan to explore this state-of-the-art field during an internship in the University of Ferrara

Study and prediction of time of recovery of consciousness after general anaesthesia

Treballs Finals de Grau d'Enginyeria Biomèdica. Facultat de Medicina i Ciències de la Salut. Universitat de Barcelona. Curs: 2022-2023. Tutor/Director: Gambús Cerrillo, Pedro LuisSeveral studies address the process of loss of consciousness during the induction of general anaesthesia, but few of them discuss or study the process of recovery of consciousness once the of general anaesthesia has been administered successfully. The main objective of this project is to study and develop a predictive model of the duration of this process of consciousness recovery based on Machine Learning (ML) and the analysis of electroencephalographic (EEG) signals. A dataset comprising 143 patients from the 4th operating room of the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona was analysed. The project involved data pre-processing, including the segmentation of EEG signals during the recovery process, feature extraction, and correlation analysis. Five ML regression algorithms, namely Linear, Lasso, and Ridge Regression, Support Vector Regression (SVR), and Random Forest (RF), were evaluated using a Cross-Validation pipeline. Model performance, feature selection, and hyperparameter optimization were assessed using the R-squared score criterion. The best performing algorithm was the regularized linear regression model, Lasso, achieving an R-squared score of 0.74 ± 0.032 (mean and standard deviation). Through the correlation analysis and the feature selection performed by the algorithm, high predictive capabilities of consciousness recovery time were obtained for alpha and beta relative averaged band power in the first minute before stopping general anaesthesia administration. The findings demonstrate that EEG signals contain valuable information regarding the process of consciousness recovery, enabling the construction of ML predictive models. However, further studies are required to enhance our understanding of the consciousness recovery process and to validate the predictive model in a clinical setting. Future investigations should focus on increasing data variability, addressing biases in validation techniques, exploring additional EEG channels to capture global brain activity, and considering regulatory considerations for Artificial Intelligence algorithms

Un enfoque comunicativo desde la perspectiva de género en la clase de inglés de secundaria: un estudio a pequeña escala

The implicit ideology behind sexist proverbs and sayings such as who has a fair wife needs more than two eyes; many women, many words, many geese, many turds; a woman without a man is like a handle without a pan or a good wife is a perfect lady in the living room, a good cook in the kitchen, and a harlot in the bedroom proves that we have been living in a men’s world, made by men and for men, for a very long time. As a matter of fact, male chauvinism is quite deep-rooted in the Spanish patriarchal society and, therefore, gender stereotypes still seem very resistant to change. However, it is undeniable that gender awareness has also positively increased in the last few decades. Nevertheless, this gender awareness is not present everywhere and in the same way. That is to say, taking the education field as an example, both the national and the regional curricula of the obligatory secondary education make explicit reference to the education system’s duty to promote initiatives and measures to raise gender awareness, yet this duty is not so extensively carried out in the everyday teaching practice. Thereby, this dissertation claims that gender awareness is not addressed in secondary education classes on a daily basis and even less so in the EFL class. The aforementioned thesis statement leads one to wonder whether the instructional resources and teaching aids used in the EFL class take the gender awareness into consideration or not. This research question has to do with the fact that the curricula clearly state that gender equality should be promoted in class but it turns out that it is not completely like this. Thus, textbooks, which are supposed to be designed in compliance with the curricular goals, should also promote this value, or at least, they should be free of gender bias, but is it really so? Does the representation of gender in textbooks reinforce or fight against gender stereotypes? Together with the goal of answering this key research question, this dissertation would like to achieve the following objectives: 1) to define gender stereotypes and the influence of school in their promotion and justify why the EFL context may be the adequate site to fight against this so-called gender bias; 2) to create a list of criteria which will allow me to spot all the existing marks of gender stereotypes in the teaching materials used in the EFL class; 3) to test this checklist as a double-edged tool: on the one hand, it will allow me to analyse the results and conclude whether instructional materials are gender-biased or not and, on the other hand, it will let me design curricular activities, both according to the results and keeping the gender awareness in mind; 4) to demonstrate that it is possible for contemporary teachers to adapt, revise and/or create EFL materials that show the social awareness with gender issues. All in all, I hope that at the end of this study I will have been able to detect to what extent some instructional materials used in the EFL class may be gender-biased, although the curricula expect the contrary, as well as to create a tool aimed at analysing and designing bias-free activities, which will probably be highly efficient when it comes to raising gender awareness in students

Characterization of interconnection networks in CMPs using full-system simulation

Los computadores más recientes incluyen complejos chips compuestos de varios procesadores y una cantidad significativa de memoria cache. La tendencia actual consiste en conectar varios nodos, cada uno de ellos con un procesador y uno o más niveles de cache privada y/o compartida, utilizando una red de interconexión. La importancia de esta red está aumentando a medida que crece el número de nodos que se integran en un chip, ya que pueden aparecer cuellos de botella en la comunicación que reduzcan las prestaciones. Además, la red contribuye en gran medida al consumo de energía y área del chip. En este proyecto, comparamos el comportamiento de tres topologías: el anillo bidireccional, la malla y el toro. El anillo es una topología mínima con bajo coste en energía pero peor rendimiento debido a la mayor latencia de comunicación entre nodos. Por otro lado, el toro tiene mayor número de enlaces entre nodos y ofrece mejores prestaciones. La malla ha sido incluida como una opción intermedia altamente popular. Analizaremos también dos topologías de anillo adicionales que aprovechan la reducida área y complejidad del mismo: una con mayor ancho de banda y otra con routers de menor número de ciclos. Modelamos cuidadosamente todos los componentes del sistema (procesadores, jerarquía de memoria y red de interconexión) utilizando simulación de sistema completo. Ejecutamos aplicaciones reales en arquitecturas con 16 y 64 nodos, incluyendo tanto cargas paralelas como multiprogramadas (ejecución de varias aplicaciones independientes). Demostramos que la topología de la red afecta en gran medida al rendimiento en sistemas con 64 nodos. Con las topologías de anillo, los tiempos de ejecución son mucho mayores debido al aumento del número de saltos que le cuesta a un mensaje atravesar la red. El toro es la topología que ofrece mejor rendimiento, pero la elección más óptima sería la malla si tenemos en cuenta también energía y área. Por otro lado, para chips con 16 nodos, las diferencias en rendimiento son menores y un anillo con routers de 3 cyclos ofrece un tiempo de ejecución aceptable con el menor coste en área y energía. Nuestra aportación más significativa está relacionada con la distribución del tráfico en la red. Vemos que el tráfico no está distribuido uniformemente y que los nodos con mayores tasas de inyección varían con la aplicación. Hasta donde nosotros sabemos, no hay ningún trabajo de investigación previo que destaque este comportamiento

Acute liver failure as the first manifestation of very late relapsing of Hodgkin's disease

Hodgkin's disease is, in general, a lymph node-based disease. It usually starts in an area within the lymphatic system and spreads, in an orderly manner, along the lymphatic chain to contiguous lymph node areas. There have been sporadic case reports of acute liver failure caused by hematological malignancies. Generally, liver failure is a feature of stage IV end-stage disease, when it occurs in lymphoma. Thus, hepatic involvement usually occurs late in the course of Hodgkin's disease or with advanced-stage disease, and primary presentation in the liver with acute liver failure is extremely rare. In most cases, the diagnosis was made at autopsy. We describe a patient with Hodgkin's disease presenting with acute liver failure. This is a very unusual Hodgkin's disease form of presentation, because the acute liver failure was the presenting feature of the disease. Furthermore, the lymphoma occurred as a very late relapse, twenty years after the first diagnosis. To the best of our knowledge, such a case has not been described to date

Cesión de autonomía en EF para incrementar la percepción de competencia mediante juegos tradicionales

Máster. La estructura básica de dicho trabajo consiste en la realización de un análisis crítico, a partir de la realización de estrategias para la implementación de la percepción de competencia en el aula, en relación a varias asignaturas del Máster, en la que se reflejan su aportación en este trabajo y evolución en los alumnos durante un periodo de tiempo.Este trabajo consiste en un análisis acerca de la percepción de competencia en la materia de Educación Física (EF). El tema surgió a raíz de la participación y llevada a cabo en el centro de prácticas, la Unidad Didáctica de Juegos Tradicionales en los dos cursos de 2º de la ESO. Con el objeto de comprobar si la utilización de estrategias metodológicas orientadas a incrementar la percepción de competencia de los alumnos, cediendo por parte del profesor mayor o menor autonomía a los alumnos, a lo largo de un periodo de tiempo, sería o no significativa.<br /

PRINCIPALES CAUSAS DE DESECHO EN EL GANADO OVINO DE CARNE DE LA PROVINCIA DE ZARAGOZA

El desecho es una práctica habitual entre los ganaderos que tiene como objetivo reducir las pérdidas económicas derivadas de la baja productividad de los animales y mejorar el estado sanitario del rebaño. El objetivo de este trabajo ha sido realizar un estudio sobre las principales causas de desecho en el ganado ovino de carne de la provincia de Zaragoza. Este estudio se ha centrado en los sistemas de producción intensivos y semiintensivos y se ha basado principalmente en la información obtenida en el Servicio de Clínica de Rumiantes de la Facultad de Veterinaria de Zaragoza durante los cursos 2013-14 y 2014-15. La media de edad de los animales de este estudio fue de 6 años. Solo en el 3% de los casos se encontró una causa única para el desecho, siendo lo más frecuente encontrar dos (33%) o tres causas (48%). Por sistemas, los más afectados fueron el reproductor, incluyendo las mamas, (60%), seguido del respiratorio (39,7%) y digestivo (32,9%). En cuanto a las patologías diagnosticadas, en las hembras destacan las mamitis (31,7%), la pseudotuberculosis (20,6%), el Maedi Visna (20%) y otras neumonías (25,4 %), mientras que en los machos solo se encontraron lesiones en los testículos o el pene. Por edades, el sistema reproductor es el más afectado en todos los rangos de edades, excepto en el de 1-3,9 años, que es superado por el sistema digestivo y respiratorio. Esta información se ha complementado con los datos obtenidos de la exploración in vivo de ovejas seleccionadas en una de las tandas de desecho de dos importantes explotaciones ovinas ubicadas en el área que abarca el estudio. Asimismo, también se han realizado encuestas a ganaderos de la zona sobre sus prácticas de desecho y se han elaborado recomendaciones que les ayuden a mejorar la selección de los animales destinados al desecho

Diferencias de socialización entre el Colegio Rural Agrupado (C.R.A.) Monegros – Hoya y el Colegio de Educación Infantil y Primaria (C.E.I.P.) Ensanche

El siguiente Trabajo de Fin de Grado tiene el objetivo de investigar si existen diferencias o no en el proceso de socialización de alumnos de la etapa de Educación Infantil de un Colegio Rural Agrupado (C.R.A.), en este caso el C.R.A. Monegros – Hoya, en un aula internivelar y un Colegio de Educación Infantil y Primaria en el que hay varias vías, en esta situación el C.E.I.P. Ensanche de Teruel, en el aula de 2º de infantil. En esta investigación se trabajó con una muestra de 28 alumnos de Educación Infantil, de los cuales 12 pertenecían al C.R.A. Monegros – Hoya y los 16 restantes al C.E.I.P. Ensanche. Para ello, se utilizó como instrumento la escala de Habilidades de Interacción Social de Shadia Abugattas Makhlouf (2016)., y las tres dimensiones que la construyen que son “Autoafirmación”, “Expresión de emociones” y “Habilidades para relacionarse”. En lo referente a la evaluación se utilizó la prueba estadística no paramétrica U de Mann Whitney. Como resultado se determinó que no existen diferencias significativas en el proceso de socialización de entre ambos colegios. En el análisis por dimensiones, únicamente han aparecido diferencias importantes entre los colegios en la dimensión de “Habilidades para relacionarse”.<br /

Impact of stress on health and final weight in fattening lambs

In order to determine whether the stress level had any influence on the health and final weight of Rasa Aragonesa fattening lambs, stress markers were measured throughout the fattening period in 80 feedlot lambs (group F) and in 40 lambs finished on the farm of birth (group C). The highest values of the stress indicators—neutrophil-to-lymphocyte-ratio (N/L), non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), serum cortisol and fecal cortisol metabolites (FCM)—were recorded after the road transportation of group F to the feedlot. No differences between the groups were identified at the end of the adaptation period, but at the end of the fattening, statistically significant higher values for NEFA and serum cortisol were determined in group F. However, statistically significant differences between the groups were not found in the percentage of lambs with clinical signs of illness and ovine respiratory complex (ORC) lesions or in the final weight of the lambs. Independent of the location at which the lambs were fattened, those with FCM values at the beginning of the study (at the time of weaning) in the highest quartile developed a higher percentage of clinical signs of illness (45.5% vs. 32.1%, p > 0.05) and ORC lesions (45.5% vs. 10.7%, p < 0.01), and their average final weight was lower (24.36 kg vs. 27.40 kg, p = 0.001) than those with values in the lowest quartile. Stress experienced by lambs prior to finishing seems to be relevant for their further development, and FCM concentration at the time of weaning could be used as an indicator of health and productive performance of the lambs during the fattening period, regardless of finishing location

Inequality on the Increase: Trajectories of Privilege and Inequality in Madrid

In Spain, housing is one of the main axes of social inequality. Its position within Spain’s economic model and welfare system is key to understanding why its financialization at the beginning of the 21st century had such different consequences among residents as well as territorially. In this context, from 2001 to 2011, Madrid became one of the most segregated metropolitan areas in Europe. This article delves into how both housing and its location organise inequality in different social spheres and reproduce it over time. To this end, the geography of this inequality is analysed in different social residential trajectories, along with how segregation produces its own dynamics of inequality. The analysis is based on census data and applies a combination of factor and cluster analyses. The results reveal important processes of social residential marginalisation articulated by the interaction between high international immigration and the spatial manifestation of the housing bubble. The main socio-spatial result of this process is the disappearance of mixed social spaces in Madrid, previously located in the centre of the city. This dynamic produces opposite territories in terms of advantage and disadvantage in different spheres linked to social inequality such as education, health, leisure, care and even prejudice. In the process, impoverished immigrants disperse towards the neighbourhoods that concentrate the greatest disadvantages in each of these spheres