Connection between single-layer Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm interferometry and thermal distributions sampling

The Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) is an algorithm originally proposed to find approximate solutions to Combinatorial Optimization problems on quantum computers. However, the algorithm has also attracted interest for sampling purposes since it was theoretically demonstrated under reasonable complexity assumptions that one layer of the algorithm already engineers a probability distribution beyond what can be simulated by classical computers. In this regard, a recent study has shown as well that, in universal Ising models, this global probability distribution resembles pure but thermal-like distributions at a temperature that depends on internal correlations of the spin model. In this work, through an interferometric interpretation of the algorithm, we extend the theoretical derivation of the amplitudes of the eigenstates, and the Boltzmann distributions generated by single-layer QAOA. We also review the implications that this behavior has from both a practical and fundamental perspective.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure

Estudio del simulador de redes vehiculares veins

El presente Proyecto Fin de Carrera presenta al lector una incursión en profundidad en el mundo de las redes vehiculares (VANETs), las analiza conceptualmente y en términos de requerimientos y muestra su potencial en lo referente a su amplia gama de aplicaciones, enfocadas a la seguridad vial, entre otras. Se concluirá que las herramientas de simulación son un medio de vital importancia para su desarrollo, pues permiten estudiar, hacer una valoración de las prestaciones y, en definitiva, verificar la viabilidad de los sistemas de comunicación entre vehículos. Todo ello sin la necesidad de importantes inversiones en experimentos de campo o nuevas infraestructuras. Se verá, por tanto, que el trabajo enfocado al estudio y desarrollo de estas herramientas no es más que una apuesta por el futuro de las propias redes vehiculares. Esto llevará a un análisis del estado del arte de las herramientas de simulación para estas redes, prestando una especial atención en los sistemas de código abierto. Nos centraremos en el marco de simulación VEINS, por tratarse de una herramienta que ofrece muy buenas prestaciones y aporta un valor añadido sobre otras soluciones de simulación híbridas similares: el acoplamiento bidireccional entre la simulación de red y la simulación de tráfico. A partir de este punto, el trabajo irá enfocado a analizar los paradigmas básicos de cada uno de los componentes de VEINS (OMNeT++, SUMO y el módulo TraCI, esencialmente) y aportar un estudio sobre las funcionalidades que ofrecen. Para finalizar, se llevará al terreno práctico lo explicado, de forma que desarrollará una guía para instalación y puesta en marcha de todos los módulos que conforman VEINS y se darán las directrices para llevar a cabo simulaciones con este sistema. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________This Final Project presents to the reader a deep incursion into the world of vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs). They will be conceptually analyzed, studied in terms of requirements, and eventually, their high potential as regards their applications (focused on road safety, among others) will be shown. As a result, a conclusion will arise, that the simulation tools are of vital importance to their development. They allow study, performance assessment and ultimately test the feasibility of inter-vehicles communication systems. All with no need for major investments in field experiments or new infrastructure. It will be seen therefore that the work focused on the study and development of these tools is just a bet on the future of vehicular networks themselves. In that context, the state of the art of VANETs simulation systems will be analyzed, paying attention to the open source ones. The main focus will be set on the VEINS simulation framework, due to its high performance results and because of its unique feature: a bidirectional coupling between the network and the traffic simulators. From that point on, the work will be aimed at analyzing the basic paradigms of all VEINS components (OMNeT++, SUMO and the TraCI module) and providing a study on their features. To conclude, everything previously explained will be put into practice. An installation and packages building guide will be developed, and the steps in order to run a simulation will be made clear, based on examples.Ingeniería de Telecomunicació

How Does Happiness Influence the Loyalty of Karate Athletes? A Model of Structural Equations From the Constructs: Consumer Satisfaction, Engagement, and Meaningful

Federations are concerned about attracting new sportsmen and sportswomen and increasing the number of members. The purpose of this research was to describe karate federations' strategies for attracting and retaining members through happiness. The analysis was carried out by designing a structural equation modeling (SEM), which allowed to analyze the main variables that influenced the happiness of the karate athlete and consequently to study their effect on people's loyalty to sports federations. In particular, Partial least squares SEM was applied in an overall model when it was possible to understand the happiness role in relation with other traditional relevant variables on loyalty. The data were obtained through primary sources employing a survey sent to the autonomous federations in the discipline of karate, obtaining a sample of 682 federated members in Spain. The results of the model revealed that consumer satisfaction, engagement, and meaningful influence on consumer happiness, but engagement was the most important and relevant variable for affecting this variable. Finally, consumer satisfaction and consumer happiness influence loyalty, and consumer satisfaction was the most important variable, but consumer happiness showed a real alternative for improving loyalty in karate sports federations. Then, one of the implications of this work was that it helped to explain how the federations can be managed to achieve loyal consumers together with a more considerable increase in the number of federated members

Assessment of electrocardiograms with pretraining and shallow networks

Objective: Clinical Decision Support Systems normally resort to annotated signals for the automatic assessment of ECG signals. In this paper we put forward a new method for the assessment of normal/abnormal heart function from raw ECG signals (i.e. signals without annotation) based on shallow neural networks with pretraining. Methodology: this paper resorts to a prospective clinical study that took place at Hospital Cll´inic in Barcelona, Spain. This study took place in 2010-2012 and recruited 1390 patients. For each patient we recorded a 12-lead ECG and diagnosis was conducted by the Cardiology service at the same hospital. Two datasets were produced, the first contained the automatically annotated version of all input signals and the second contained the raw signals obtained from the ECG. Results: The new method was tested through crossvalidation with a cohort of 200 test patients. Performance was compared for both annotated and raw datasets. For the annotated dataset and a shallow network with pretraining we obtained an accuracy of 0.8639, a sensitivity of 0.9560 and specificity of 0.7143. The raw dataset yielded an accuracy of 0.8426, a sensitivity of 0.8977 and a specificity of 0.7785. Conclusion: Shallow networks with pretraining automatically obtain a representation of the input data without resorting to any annotation and thus simplify the process of assessing normality of ECG signals. Despite the fact that sensitivity has decreased, accuracy is not much lower than that obtained with standard methods. Specificity is improved with the new method. These results open up a promising line of research for the automatic assessment of ECG signals.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The Purchase Intention of Fashion Brand Retailers. A Journey through Consumer Engagement and Happiness

The objective of this paper is to define an SEM model that examines how fashion consumers expectations of consumer brand engagement (CBE) influence purchase intention, both directly and through consumer happiness as a mediator. For this purpose, we will develop the components of CBE and Consumer Happiness variables, whose relevance in the literature has increased considerably. For this purpose, a cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out by means of a survey developed on the basis of the scales found in the literature, with a sample of 1,296 consumers representative of the Spanish population. The method used to test the hypotheses was partial least squares (PLS_SEM). The results of this research indicate that both CBE and consumer happiness positively influence the purchase intention of fashion brands. In turn, the importance of the dimensions of the antecedent variables can be established. The current research does not allow a longitudinal analysis of the consumption of fashion retailers. The findings of this scientific study provide a wealth of theoretical and practical information for managers to develop management models based on the sensory enjoyment of their consumers. CUST_SOCIAL_IMPLICATIONS_(LIMIT_100_WORDS) :No data available. One of the novelties of this study is that it considers the consumer happiness variable and its dimensions in a consumer behavior model together with CBEAyuntamiento de Madri

Protein repeats evolve and emerge in giant viruses

Nucleocytoplasmatic large DNA viruses (NCLDVs or giant viruses) stand out because of their relatively large genomes encoding hundreds of proteins. These species give us an unprecedented opportunity to study the emergence and evolution of repeats in protein sequences. On the one hand, as viruses, these species have a restricted set of functions, which can help us better define the functional landscape of repeats. On the other hand, given the particular use of the genetic machinery of the host, it is worth asking whether this allows the variations of genetic material that lead to repeats in non-viral species. To support research in the characterization of repeat protein evolution and function, we present here an analysis focused on the repeat proteins of giant viruses, namely tandem repeats (TRs), short repeats (SRs), and homorepeats (polyX). Proteins with large and short repeats are not very frequent in non-eukaryotic organisms because of the difficulties that their folding may entail; however, their presence in giant viruses remarks their advantage for performance in the protein environment of the eukaryotic host. The heterogeneous content of these TRs, SRs and polyX in some viruses hints at diverse needs. Comparisons to homologs suggest that the mechanisms that generate these repeats are extensively used by some of these viruses, but also their capacity to adopt genes with repeats. Giant viruses could be very good models for the study of the emergence and evolution of protein repeats.Fil: Erdozain, Sofía. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas. Instituto de Biotecnología y Biología Molecular; ArgentinaFil: Barrionuevo, Emilia Mercedes. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Ripoll, Lucas. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología. Laboratorio de Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular y Celular; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Mier, Pablo. Johannes Gutenberg Universitat Mainz; AlemaniaFil: Andrade Navarro, Miguel A.. Johannes Gutenberg Universitat Mainz; Alemani

Assessment of determinants of high nature value (HNV) farmland at plot scale in Western Pyrenees

The concept of High Nature Value (HNV) farming hinges on the causality between agroecosystems with low intensity of management and the corresponding environmental outcomes, including high levels of biodiversity and the presence of semi-natural habitats. Although European strategies for rural development and biodiversity conservation have long recognized the importance of HNV farmlands, many of those areas are currently threatened by intensification and land abandonment. A variety of approaches have been developed for identifying HNV areas and measuring changes in their distribution and extent at landscape scales. In contrast, quantitative approaches for evaluating differences in HNV among the most basic units of management (farms and farm plots) are scarce and almost exclusively based on biodiversity indicators. This gap limits our ability to derive existing gradients of HNV at fine scale and the underlying cause conducive to HNV. Hence, we implemented an index to capture multiple facets of HNV based on expert knowledge criteria and field surveys performed at the finest scale of management (plot). First, we computed this index for hundreds of grasslands located across the Western Pyrenees. Then, we analysed the relationship between the nature value of plots and environmental, management and socio-economic variables. Our results evidence a gradient between low diversity and intensively used agricultural plots and HNV grasslands in the Western Pyrenees. Highest nature values were significantly related to the occurrence of plots in meadows located in steep areas within the Natura 2000 network, whereas lowest values were related to recently opened areas and the number of treatments per year. Importantly, this index, which could be adapted to other farming areas, provides quantitative information to support the implementation of result-based schemes, including eco-schemes and agri-environment-climate interventions of the new CAP (2023–2027).This work was funded by the CAP Planning Section – Department of Rural Development and Environment (Government of Navarre). I.P. was also supported by the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) (ESPDOC18/43)

Employability and Personal Initiative as Antecedents of Job Satisfaction

In a changing and flexible labour market it is important to clarify the role of environmental and personal variables that contribute to obtaining adequate levels of job satisfaction. The aim of the present study is to analyze the direct effects of employability and personal initiative on intrinsic, extrinsic and social job satisfaction, clarifying their cumulative and interactive effects. The study has been carried out in a sample of 1319 young Spanish workers. Hypotheses were tested by means of the moderated hierarchical regression analysis. Results show that employability and personal initiative predict in a cumulative way the intrinsic, extrinsic and social job satisfaction. Moreover, the interaction between employability and personal initiative increases the prediction of these two variables on intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction. Results also indicate that higher values of employability when initiative is also high are associated to higher levels of intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction. These results have implications for theory and practice in a context of new employment [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

LA EMPLEABILIDAD Y LA INICIATIVA PERSONAL COMO ANTECEDENTES DE LA SATISFACCION LABORAL

Transformations in the socio-economic environment of the companies lead them to more flexible employment policies and other changes in their human resources management practices. In this context it is important to clarify the role of several environmental and personal variables that can contribute to obtain jobs producing adequate levels of job satisfaction. The aim of the present study is to analyze the direct effects of employability and personal initiative on job satisfaction. It also intends to clarify whether their effects are cumulative and/or interactive on intrinsic, extrinsic and social job satisfaction. The study has been carried out in a sample of 1319 young Spanish workers. Results show that employability and personal initiative significantly predict in a cumulative way intrinsic, extrinsic and social job satisfaction. Moreover, the interaction of employability and personal initiative increase the direct effects of these two variables on intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction. Thus, higher values of employability when personal initiative is also high are associated to the highest levels of intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction. These results have clear implications for theory and practice in a context in which job flexibility is inducing new employment relations between employers and employees. This situation requires from the workers new career management strategies. Las transformaciones en el entorno socio-económico de las empresas llevan a éstas a adoptar políticas de flexibilidad laboral y otros cambios en sus prácticas de recursos humanos. En este contexto, es importante clarificar el papel de diferentes variables ambientales y personales que permitan lograr trabajos con niveles adecuados de satisfacción laboral. El objetivo principal de este trabajo es analizar el papel directo de la empleabilidad y la iniciativa personal sobre la satisfacción laboral, clarificando si sus efectos son acumulativos e interactivos. Además, se analiza de forma separada la satisfacción laboral intrínseca, extrínseca y social. El estudio se ha realizado con una muestra de 1319 trabajadores españoles jóvenes. Los resultados muestran que la empleabilidad y la iniciativa personal contribuyen de forma acumulativa a predecir la satisfacción laboral extrínseca, intrínseca y social. Por otra parte, la interacción de empleabilidad e iniciativa incrementa la predicción de la satisfacción extrínseca e intrínseca de tal modo que valores elevados en ambas variables se asocian con niveles más altos de satisfacción intrínseca y extrínseca. Estos resultados tienen claras implicaciones teóricas y prácticas en un contexto en el que la flexibilidad laboral plantea unas nuevas relaciones empleador-empleado y requiere nuevas estrategias de gestión de la carrera por parte del trabajador.Empleabilidad, iniciativa personal, satisfacción laboral. Employability, Personal Initiative and Job Satisfaction.