Age differences: a study on teenager English

Traballo Fin de Grao en Lingua e Literatura Inglesas. Curso 2013-2014This study is concerned with the use of the English language by a particular group: British teenagers. One of the aims of this study is to present how the age factor plays a crucial role in the linguistic change and how, more specifically, the period of adolescence is a transitional stage for the individual, not only at the psychological and physical levels but also linguistically. The main focus of this research is to explain and to analyse the main phonological, lexical, and grammatical features that characterize the language of the British teenagers as a distinctive and unique languag

Non-noticeable information embedding in color images: marking and detection

One of the problems arising from the use of digital media is the ease of obtaining identical copies of digital images or audio files, allowing manipulation and unauthorized use. Copyright is an effective tool for preserving intellectual property of those documents but authors and publishers need effective techniques preventing copyright modification, due to the straightforward access to multimedia applications and the wider use of digital publications through the WWW. These techniques are generally called watermarking and allow the introduction of side information (i.e. author identification, copyrights, dates, etc.). This work concentrates on the problem of watermarking embedding and optimum detection in color images through the use of spread spectrum techniques, both in space (direct sequence spread spectrum or DSSS) and frequency (frequency hopping). It is applied to RGB and opponent color component representations. Perceptive information is considered in both color systems. Some tests are performed in order to ensure imperceptibility and to assess detection quality of the optimum color detectors.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Recorrido sobre las lenguas del Chaco y los aportes a la investigación lingüística

El Chaco es una de las regiones más ricas de América del Sur, no sólo desde el punto de vista ecológico, sino en términos de su diversidad etnolingüística. Este artículo ofrece primero un panorama actualizado sobre las lenguas chaqueñas y su clasificación genealógica así como un estado del arte de las obras publicadas sobre las lenguas del Chaco argentino. Después de reseñar los estudios sobre sintaxis en las lenguas chaqueñas anteriores a este volumen de Amerindia, las autoras se centran en los planteos teóricos que emergen del estudio de la cláusula y las relaciones interclausales en esta área lingüística, haciendo hincapié en los sistemas de alineamiento, las clases de palabras, sus límites y superposiciones, la relacionalidad de los sustantivos, los distintos tipos de cláusulas y de predicados, los procesos de combinación de verbos y de enlace entre cláusulas a nivel oracional y discursivo. Por último, pasan revista a los aspectos en los cuales los trabajos compilados contribuyen a la discusión y profundización de todos esos temas.Fil: Golluscio, Lucia Angela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro Argentino de Información Científica y Tecnológica; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras; ArgentinaFil: Vidal, Alejandra Silvia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Formosa. Facultad de Humanidades. Instituto de Investigaciones Lingüísticas; Argentin

Developing Spiritual Tourism for Youngsters, the Spirit-Youth example

Spiritual tourism was coined from an academic standpoint only recently, probably because the word spiritual is difficult to define and the label can therefore include different types of supply. Spiritually motivated tourists are an emerging niche (Aulet, Vidal-Casellas, & Crous, 2015). According to UNTWO estimates, around 330 million tourists visit the main religious sites each year, spiritual motivation being one of the most important reasons for this (Lanquar, 2007). Bywater (1994) also mentioned that spiritual travel occupies an important segment of international tourism and has been growing steadily. SPIRIT-Youth is a COSME project (COSME-TOUR-2015-3-04) funded by the European Commission’s Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME). The SPIRIT-Youth project is a proposal for stimulating tourism mobility among young people out of season via spiritual tourism. In this paper presents the results of the pilot test. The idea of the project is to offer a transnational spiritual tourism product to attract mainly but not only the youth tourism market. The product consists of an itinerary across several European countries, with the common theme of spirituality, understood in a global sense; that includes religious sites and religious motivations. Each region participating in the project (Limburg, Prato and Catalonia) identified a minimum of 10 activities related to Spiritual Tourism and a pilot test was carried out. Each region hosted a group of 25 youngsters testing the activities and giving their feedback. They had a “travel diary” to note down their experiences and later provide feedback on the tested products and answered some questionnaires. With the results of the pilot test we are able to analyse their concept about spiritual tourism activities, the things to improve or to change in the activities proposed… The aim is to develop guidelines for the creation of spiritual tourism products for youngsters

Repeatability and reproducibility of corneal thickness using SOCT Copernicus HR

Purpose: The aim of this study is to determine the reliability of corneal thickness measurements derived from SOCT Copernicus HR (Fourier domain OCT). Methods: Thirty healthy eyes of 30 subjects were evaluated. One eye of each patient was chosen randomly. Images were obtained of the central (up to 2.0 mm from the corneal apex) and paracentral (2.0 to 4.0 mm) cornea. We assessed corneal thickness (central and paracentral) and epithelium thickness. The intra-observer repeatability data were analysed using the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) for a range of 95 per cent within-subject standard deviation (SW) and the within-subject coefficient of variation (CW). The level of agreement by Bland–Altman analysis was also represented for the study of the reproducibility between observers and agreement between methods of measurement (automatic versus manual). Results: The mean value of the central corneal thickness (CCT) was 542.4 ± 30.1 μm (SD). There was a high intra-observer agreement, finding the best result in the central sector with an intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.99, 95 per cent CI (0.989 to 0.997) and the worst, in the minimum corneal thickness, with an intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.672, 95 per cent CI (0.417 to 0.829). Reproducibility between observers was very high. The best result was found in the central sector thickness obtained both manually and automatically with an intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.990 in both cases and the worst result in the maximum corneal thickness with an intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.827. The agreement between measurement methods was also very high with intra-class correlation coefficient greater than 0.91. On the other hand the repeatability and reproducibility for epithelial measurements was poor. Conclusion: Pachymetric mapping with SOCT Copernicus HR was found to be highly repeatable and reproducible. We found that the device lacks an appropriate ergonomic design as proper focusing of the laser beam onto the cornea for anterior segment scanning required that patients were positioned slightly farther away from the machine head-rest than in the setup for retinal imaging

Dynamic programming for variable discounted Markov decision problems

We study the existence of optimal strategies and value function of non stationary Markov decision processes under variable discounted criteria, when the action space is assumed to be Borel and the action space to be compact. With this new way of defining the value of a policy, we show existence of Markov deterministic optimal policies in the finite-horizon case, and a recursive method to obtain such ones. For the infinite horizon problem we characterize the value function and show existence of stationary deterministic policies. The approach presented is based on the use of adequate dynamic programming operators.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa (SADIO

Trabajo de Fin de Máster

Memoria integradora de los conocimientos adquiridos a partir de dos de los trabajos realizados a lo largo del máster: unidad didáctica y trabajo de investigación

Nutritional value of four pest animals to be used in feeding monogastric organisms

[ES] Las muestras de animales plagas fueron colectadas, secadas y molidas. Estas fueron analizadas para determinar su contenido en proteína, cenizas y aminoácidos. Los análisis bromatológicos mostraron que Achatina fulica y Pieris brassica, contienen más proteína bruta, (PB) (779.2 y 812.2 g/kg) en comparación a Phyllophaga spp. y Spodoptera frugierda (432. 5 y 445.7 g/ kg). Comparando el perfil de aminoácidos, A. fulica y P. brassica obtuvieron los niveles más altos en la mayoría de los amino ácidos esenciales (AAE) que la torta de soya y en el caso de A. fulica, éste exhibió valores más altos que la harina de pescado en arginina, cisteina, glicina, serina y tirosina. Observando la relación de AAE/AANE (amino ácidos no esenciales) en las harinas, sólo S. frugiperda presentó valores similares a la harina de pescado (0.85). Todas las harinas de animales plagas presentaron una reducción en la cuantificación de amino ácidos en relación con los valores de PB obtenidos por el método de Kjeldahl, esta reducción se encontraba entre 28.6 y 38.0%. Esta disminución podría deberse a la combinación entre la proteína y la quitina que se encuentran en el cuerpo de los insectos. A pesar de esta reducción la cuantificación de amino ácidos de los animales plagas podría ser una buena alternativa para su uso en la alimentación de monogástricos, especialmente para peces y crustáceos.[EN] The pest samples were collected, dried, and grounded. They were analysed to determinate contain of protein, energy, ashes and amino acids. The bromatological analysis showed that Achatina fulica and Pieris brassica, obtained a higher amount of crude protein (CP) (779.2 and 812.2 g/kg) in comparison to Phyllophaga spp. and Spodoptera frugiperda (432.5 and 455.7 g/kg). Comparing the amino acids profile, A. fulica and P. brassica obtained higher values in most of the essential amino acids (EAA) than soybean meal, and A. fulica exhibited even higher values than fish meal (FM) in Arginine, Cysteine, Glycine, Serine, and Tyrosine. Observing the relation of EAA/NEEA (no essential amino acids) in all the meals only S. frugiperda presented a similar value to fish meal (0.85). All the pest meals presented a reduction in the amino acids quantification in comparison to the CP values obtained by the Kjeldahl method, with reduction between 28.6 through 38.0%. This diminution could be due to the linkage of the protein to the chitin content of the insect body. In spite of the reduction of the amino acids quantification, the pest meals could be an alternative in feeding monogastric organisms, especially fish and crustaceans.To the Polytechnic University of Valencia for it support.Nogales Mérida, S.; Velazco Vargas, JL.; Martínez-Llorens, S.; Tomas-Vidal, A. (2018). Nutritional value of four pest animals to be used in feeding monogastric organisms. Archivos de Zootecnia. 67(258):278-282. https://doi.org/10.21071/az.v67i258.3664S2782826725

The Impact of Ly49-NK Cell-Dependent Recognition of MCMV Infection on Innate and Adaptive Immune Responses

Clinical and experimental data indicate that a subset of innate lymphocytes, natural killer (NK) cells, plays a crucial role in the response against herpesviruses, especially cytomegaloviruses (CMV). Indeed, in mice, NK cells, due to the expression of germline encoded Ly49 receptors, possess multiple mechanisms to recognize CMV infection. Classically, this results in NK cell activation and the destruction of the infected cells. More recently, however, this unique host-pathogen interaction has permitted the discovery of novel aspects of NK cell biology, implicating them in the regulation of adaptive immune responses as well as in the development of immunological memory. Here, we will concisely review the newly acquired evidence pertaining to NK cell Ly49-dependent recognition of MCMV-infected cell and the ensuing NK cell regulatory responses