Designer-driven 3D buildings generated using variable neighborhood search

This paper presents a mechanism to generate virtual buildings considering designer constraints and guidelines. This mechanism is implemented as a pipeline of different Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) optimization processes in which several subproblems are tackled (1) rooms locations, (2) connectivity graph, and (3) element placement. The core VNS algorithm includes some variants to improve its performance, such as, for example constraint handling and biased operator selection. The optimization process uses a toolkit of construction primitives implemented as "smart objects" providing basic elements such as rooms, doors, staircases and other connectors. The paper also shows experimental results of the application of different designer constraints to a wide range of buildings from small houses to a large castle with several underground levels

Critical Analysis of a World Heritage Site in Terms of Conservation and Tourism Promotion: The Case of “Ibiza, Biodiversity and Culture” (Ibiza, Spain)

[Abstract]: : United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites (WHS) have great prestige. Each year, candidatures are presented by advocates seeking to raise awareness of the importance of certain cultural and natural sites, to achieve better protection and to make them known, which can promote tourism to benefit the surrounding regions. One of these cases is Ibiza, which, after a first rejection in 1986, obtained the inscription of “Ibiza, Biodiversity and Culture” in 1999. This WHS is made up of various cultural and natural elements of the island, although the best known is the fortified Upper Town of Ibiza (Dalt Vila). Since then, important restoration and musealization actions have been carried out in the old town, and some tourism promotion events have been held, but there have been failures in its conversion into a tourist product: Both residents and tourists see this as complementary to the traditional offer (sun and beach tourism); confusion has been generated in communication, focusing on the old town and forgetting the other elements; tourist visits to the registered elements have not taken off and are concentrated in the summer months (the traditional high season); some decisions have been politicized, among other problems. Finally, different lines of tourism development are proposed

Transport Poverty with Special Reference to Sustainability: A Systematic Review of the Literature

The aim of this work is to analyse the state of the art of scientific research related to transport poverty with special reference to sustainability and to identify new research needs. To this end, a methodology has been used in line with the objective set out, choosing the systematic review of the literature as the most suitable method. The results show that transport poverty is an under-exploited issue and is not well articulated by researchers, and there are great differences between the different areas of knowledge studied. The subjects related to health and medicine have more publications, almost 58%, with the rest distributed among 11 different subjects. Of the works analysed, only 26.69% refer to the topic of sustainability, and therefore this is a branch which is little studied in the literature in this field. Another relevant finding is that all the articles analysed highlight the vulnerability and inequality of the groups affected by transport poverty, with the elderly being the least studied in the research work

Acceptance of Tourist Offers and Territory: Cluster Analysis of Ibiza Residents (Spain)

[Abstract]: Heterogeneity studies have analyzed different clusters of residents according to their perception and attitude toward tourism in general or a specific type of tourism, but there are still no studies on the heterogeneity in the acceptance of tourist offers. The aim of this article was to segment residents according to their acceptance of different tourist offers focused on the territory. This is a new approach that seeks to determine the profiles of residents based on their preferences for the future development of a destination’s offer in order to solve land-related problems. Cluster analysis carried out by the K-means algorithm made it possible to create five clusters: Disappointed, favorable with nuances, moderate, enthusiasts but anti-nightclub, and enthusiasts. The clusters were characterized by the rejection of the “all inclusive” offer and by the acceptance of most offers. The types of tourism that involve an enhancement of the landscape and heritage were shown to be the best valued. The differences between the clusters were marked by the degree of general acceptance and by the rejection of some offers considered “conflicting.” The offers that imply a high consumption of land (golf courses) or annoyances from the immediate surroundings (nightclubs) generated discrepanciesThe APC was funded by the University of Magdalena, Colombia

Social Acceptance of Aquaculture in Andalusian Atlantic Coast (Spain): An Emerging Economy Sector

Aquaculture is an important source of food. This document analyses its acceptance by consumers from the perspective of social carrying capacity. This concept determines the point at which its development begins to be excessive, and poses difficulties to its geographical area. In this context, our work is innovative, since, although Spain is the leading aquaculture producer in the European Union, not much research on this aspect has been developed. With this objective, we carried out 579 personal interviews with consumers from the Andalusian Atlantic coast (Spain), to determine an index of acceptance for this food and its industry. After applying a principal component analysis, we stratified the samples following Dalenius-Hodges method. According to our surveys, there is a high level of acceptance, which would place aquaculture far from its saturation point, the level at which this sector generates relevant problems for society in terms of economy or environment. Respondents also recommended its further development. Women and low-income consumers were the groups with the greatest reticence about this sector. We consider that general acceptance would be improved by implementing informative campaigns, especially for these groups, that would extend consumers' knowledge and improve their perception of this kind of food

Social Acceptance of Aquaculture in Spain: An Instrument to Achieve Sustainability for Society

Aquaculture is a technique to produce food that is under debate, due to its possible consequences for altering the economy, traditional fishing included, or the environment, even with doubts about the health of consumers. This document studies its social acceptance from the point of view of carrying capacity. This term is defined as the level at which this activity begins to be disproportionate and poses important disadvantages for society. In this context, we conducted 803 surveys in six coastal provinces in Spain. The results show that the acceptance of these products is good, implying that aquaculture is far from reaching its saturation point in society. Additionally, the respondents gave a higher priority to socio-economic objectives than to environmental ones. We can conclude that the further development of this sector is advisable in these provinces. The general perception of aquaculture is better among men, and also among higher-income consumers. Informative activities should be organized to target these more hesitant groups. Production structures should be revised to overcome biases in the population about the idea that the food obtained from aquaculture harms the environment or is less natural or healthy. The possible abuse of feed and chemicals spreads this idea, and this could affect the taste and quality adversely

The Effect of Hexamethylene Diisocyanate-Modified Graphene Oxide as a Nanofiller Material on the Properties of Conductive Polyaniline

Conducting polymers like polyaniline (PANI) have gained a lot of interest due to their outstanding electrical and optoelectronic properties combined with their low cost and easy synthesis. To further exploit the performance of PANI, carbon-based nanomaterials like graphene, graphene oxide (GO) and their derivatives can be incorporated in a PANI matrix. In this study, hexamethylene diisocyanate-modified GO (HDI-GO) nanosheets with two di erent functionalization degrees have been used as nanofillers to develop high-performance PANI/HDI-GO nanocomposites via in situ polymerization of aniline in the presence of HDI-GO followed by ultrasonication and solution casting. The influence of the HDI-GO concentration and functionalization degree on the nanocomposite properties has been examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray di raction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), tensile tests, zeta potential and four-point probe measurements. SEM analysis demonstrated a homogenous dispersion of the HDI-GO nanosheets that were coated by the matrix particles during the in situ polymerization. Raman spectra revealed the existence of very strong PANI-HDI-GO interactions via - stacking, H-bonding, and hydrophobic and electrostatic charge-transfer complexes. A steady enhancement in thermal stability and electrical conductivity was found with increasing nanofiller concentration, the improvements being higher with increasing HDI-GO functionalization level. The nanocomposites showed a very good combination of rigidity, strength, ductility and toughness, and the best equilibrium of properties was attained at 5 wt % HDI-GO. The method developed herein opens up a versatile route to prepare multifunctional graphene-based nanocomposites with conductive polymers for a broad range of applications including flexible electronics and organic solar cells

Distributed Estimation of Distribution Algorithms for continuous optimization: how does the exchanged information influence their behavior?

One of the most promising areas in which probabilistic graphical models have shown an incipient activity is the field of heuristic optimization and, in particular, in Estimation of Distribution Algorithms. Due to their inherent parallelism, different research lines have been studied trying to improve Estimation of Distribution Algorithms from the point of view of execution time and/or accuracy. Among these proposals, we focus on the so-called distributed or island-based models. This approach defines several islands (algorithms instances) running independently and exchanging information with a given frequency. The information sent by the islands can be either a set of individuals or a probabilistic model. This paper presents a comparative study for a distributed univariate Estimation of Distribution Algorithm and a multivariate version, paying special attention to the comparison of two alternative methods for exchanging information, over a wide set of parameters and problems ? the standard benchmark developed for the IEEE Workshop on Evolutionary Algorithms and other Metaheuristics for Continuous Optimization Problems of the ISDA 2009 Conference. Several analyses from different points of view have been conducted to analyze both the influence of the parameters and the relationships between them including a characterization of the configurations according to their behavior on the proposed benchmark

El impacto del flipped classroomen la motivación y en el aprendizaje de los estudiantes en la asignatura Dirección de Operaciones

[EN] The objective of this work is to analyze the effectiveness of the Flipped Classroom methodology in the discipline of Operations Management, analyzing for this the motivation of the students and their learning results in terms of the acquisition of skills and qualifications obtained. Specifically, a comparative analysis is carried out with two teaching groups, having applied the methodology of Flipped Classroom only in one of them.Esta investigación ha sido parcialmente financiada por el Gobierno de la Comunidad de Madrid bajo el proyecto SICOMORo-CM (S2013/ICE-3006), por el proyecto ELASTIC (TIN2014-52938-C2-1-R), financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación del Gobierno de España y por el Grupo de Excelencia Investigadora en Service Science, Management and Engineering-GES2ME (Ref. Orgánica 30VCPIGI05) cofinanciado por la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos y el Banco Santander.Díaz Garrido, E.; Martín-Peña, ML.; Sánchez-López, JM. (2017). The impact of Flipped Classroom on the motivation and learning of students in Operations Management. Working Papers on Operations Management. 8(SP):15-18. https://doi.org/10.4995/wpom.v8i0.7091SWORD15188SPBaepler, P., Walker, J. D., & Driessen, M. (2014). It’s not about seat time: Blending, flipping, and efficiency in active learning classrooms. Computers & Education, 78, 227-236. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2014.06.006Bristol, T. (2014). Flipping the Classroom. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 9(1), 43-46. doi:10.1016/j.teln.2013.11.002Butt, A. (2014). Student Views on the Use of a Flipped Classroom Approach: Evidence from Australia. Business Education & Accreditation, Vol. 33, No. 6, pp. 33–44.Gilboy, M. B., Heinerichs, S., & Pazzaglia, G. (2015). Enhancing Student Engagement Using the Flipped Classroom. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 47(1), 109-114. doi:10.1016/j.jneb.2014.08.008Gross, D., Pietri, E. S., Anderson, G., Moyano-Camihort, K., & Graham, M. J. (2015). Increased Preclass Preparation Underlies Student Outcome Improvement in the Flipped Classroom. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 14(4), ar36. doi:10.1187/cbe.15-02-0040O’Flaherty, J., & Phillips, C. (2015). The use of flipped classrooms in higher education: A scoping review. The Internet and Higher Education, 25, 85-95. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2015.02.002Tucker, B. (2012). The flipped classroom. Education Next, Vol. 12, No.1, pp.82-83

Implementación del programa multimedia interactivo eFieldbook para la enseñanza-aprendizaje de las Ciencias Naturales en el Grado de Maestro

Memoria ID12-0110. Ayudas de la Universidad de Salamanca para la innovación docente, curso 2012-2013