Multivariate Data Imputation using Trees

We address the problem of completing two files with records containing a fully observed common subset of variables. The tecnique investigated involves the use of regression and/or classification trees. An extension of current methodology (the intersection-seeking or "forest-climbing" algorithm) is proposed to deal with multivariate response variables. The method is demonstrated and shown to be feasible and have some desirable properties.file completion, data imputation, regression trees

Measuring the Effect of the Real Estate Bubble: a House Price Index for Bilbao

A spatio-temporal model is proposed aimed at producing an index of housing prices. A hedonic model with geographically varying coefficients is coupled with a non parametric estimation of the trend, whence a price index is derived.house prices, price index, GWR, geographically weighted regression

Authentic materials in the Business English classroom: Annual Reports

International firms are interested in getting the best possible professionals, those who are able to communicate accurately at the workplace. To help them, the use of authentic materials in the classroom can enhance students’ options to succeed in their prospective working environment. From a genre-based perspective, annual reports can be useful for that purpose, as they offer a real corporate image of the companies, helping students to understand better how firms work. This paper shows a practical implementation of three activities that are carried out among three different groups of students at a Spanish public university to promote their communicative skills. To do so we have followed a multimodal approach, so that our students can experience, conceptualize and apply meaning to a genre (annual report), completing some tasks in which they have to communicate in English the information appearing in those texts. The final pedagogical recommendations enhance the benefits of using authentic materials in the English for business communication classroom. The combination of multimodality and genre-based pedagogy lead students to understand the current meaning construction in professional settings.

Multivariate Data Imputation using Trees

We address the problem of completing two files with records containing a fully observed common subset of variables. The tecnique investigated involves the use of regression and/or classification trees. An extension of current methodology (the intersection-seeking or "forest-climbing" algorithm) is proposed to deal with multivariate response variables. The method is demonstrated and shown to be feasible and have some desirable properties.We thank for support the Spanish MEC (grant PB98-0149)

English Communication for International Business II

Llibre i audioENGLISH COMMUNICATION FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS II is the second book of a collection oftwo addressed to those students involved in learning English to communicate in business contexts. As the previous one, the book is conceived as self-learning material which includes the keys to most activities although the support ofthe instructor in the classroom becomes necessary for some of them. This book is content-based, trying to emphasise the written and oral communicative necessities of the international business world. The book is organised in six units which deal with some types ofbusiness written and oral communication, such as meetings and negotiations, international trade procedures related to Incoterms, packing, delivery and insurance, methods of payment and their corresponding documents, orders, and complaints. All units deal with reading, writing, and listening skills, as well as translation. The CD provided with the book is higWy useful for the listening activities. Speaking and interaction can also be worked in all units although always with the teacher's guidance. Each unit starts with a general explanation of the topic, followed by reading comprehension and vocabulary activities. Along the unit, several specific explanations can be found including examples of the documents and of the written and spoken communicative events involved. Students are then required to produce their own documents and effective pieces of communication. At the end of each unit, two communicative situations have been included, asking students to solve a business problem. After the situations, each unit is provided with references for further reading either in books or in websites. As a complement to the units in both volumes, a series of seventeen case studies have been created. These case studies reproduce real situations in a company, such as launching a new product, hiring a new employee, strategies to sell a product, reacting to claims, negotiating staff reduction, etc

Transverse galloping of two-dimensional bodies having a rhombic cross-section

Transverse galloping is a type of aeroelastic instability characterized by oscillations perpendicular to wind direction, large amplitude and low frequency, which appears in some elastic two-dimensional bluff bodies when they are subjected to an incident flow, provided that the flow velocity exceeds a threshold critical value. Understanding the galloping phenomenon of different cross-sectional geometries is important in a number of engineering applications: for energy harvesting applications the interest relies on strongly unstable configurations but in other cases the purpose is to avoid this type of aeroelastic phenomenon. In this paper the aim is to analyze the transverse galloping behavior of rhombic bodies to understand, on the one hand, the dependence of the instability with a geometrical parameter such as the relative thickness and, on the other hand, why this cross-section shape, that is generally unstable, shows a small range of relative thickness values where it is stable. Particularly, the non-galloping rhombus-shaped prism?s behavior is revised through wind tunnel experiments. The bodies are allowed to freely move perpendicularly to the incoming flow and the amplitude of movement and pressure distributions on the surfaces is measured

A scheduling theory framework for GPU tasks efficient execution

Concurrent execution of tasks in GPUs can reduce the computation time of a workload by overlapping data transfer and execution commands. However it is difficult to implement an efficient run- time scheduler that minimizes the workload makespan as many execution orderings should be evaluated. In this paper, we employ scheduling theory to build a model that takes into account the device capabili- ties, workload characteristics, constraints and objec- tive functions. In our model, GPU tasks schedul- ing is reformulated as a flow shop scheduling prob- lem, which allow us to apply and compare well known methods already developed in the operations research field. In addition we develop a new heuristic, specif- ically focused on executing GPU commands, that achieves better scheduling results than previous tech- niques. Finally, a comprehensive evaluation, showing the suitability and robustness of this new approach, is conducted in three different NVIDIA architectures (Kepler, Maxwell and Pascal).Proyecto TIN2016- 0920R, Universidad de Málaga (Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech) y programa de donación de NVIDIA Corporation

Using Life Cycle Thinking and Assessment for industrial waste management policy making

Postprint (published version