Psychometric Properties of the Spanish Version of the Goal Orientation Scales in Ecuadorian Undergraduate Students

The present study aims to analyze the psychometric properties of the Goal orientation Scales (GOS; Skaalvik, 1997) in a sample of 2,170 Ecuadorian undergraduate students (M = 21. 97, SD = 3.61; 61.6% female). The Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis supported the four-factor structure of the GOS, and the scale exhibited an adequate factorial invariance for gender. The multidimensional Rasch analysis revealed that one item showed misfit, and the distribution of items did not correspond well with the levels of achievement goals. The current research addresses a formal gap related to the validation of the GOS in a Latin American country and provides advanced psychometric information to further improve the scale for its application to Spanish-speaking samples

Speech into Sign Language Statistical Translation System for Deaf People

This paper presents a set of experiments used to develop a statistical system from translating speech to sign language for deaf people. This system is composed of an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system, followed by a statistical translation module and an animated agent that represents the different signs. Two different approaches have been used to perform the translations: a phrase-based system and a finite state transducer. For the evaluation, the followings figures have been considered: WER (Word Error Rate), BLEU and NIST. The paper presents translation results of reference sentences and sentences from the automatic speech recognizer. Also three different configurations have been evaluated for the speech recognizer. The best results were obtained with the finite state transducer, with a word error rate of 28.21% for the reference text, and 29.27% using the ASR output

New teaching methodology for electronics and its adaptation to the European space for higher education

There is a widespread consensus that aims to the flexibility of the subjects, both in terms of times and places when and where they are taught as one of the main factors that increase or enhance their appeal for students. The deployment of a new remote access platform tailored to the specific needs of students in a course on digital electronic systems based on microprocessors has enabled them to enjoy greater flexibility by offering them the ability to complete remotely, in a different time and place to the university, the proposed practices (PBL) simultaneously with the lectures. This remarkable improvement, endorsed by the results of a survey among the students, has had a particularly positive impact on the impression students have of the subject, and has contributed significantly to improve its assessment and the participation in it

Aplicación de métodos estadísticos para la traducción de voz a Lengua de Signos

Este artículo presenta un conjunto de experimentos para la realización de un sistema de traducción estadística de voz a lengua de signos para personas sordas. El sistema contiene un primer módulo de reconocimiento de voz, un segundo módulo de traducción estadística de palabras en castellano a signos en Lengua de Signos Española, y un tercer módulo que realiza el signado de los signos mediante un agente animado. La traducción se hace utilizando dos alternativas tecnológicas: la primera basada en modelos de subsecuencias de palabras y la segunda basada en transductores de estados finitos. De todos los experimentos, se obtienen los mejores resultados con el modelo que realiza la traducción mediante transductores de estados finitos con unas tasas de error de 26,06% para las frases de referencia, de 33,42% para la salida del reconocedor

Incorporación de información sintáctico-semántica en la traducción de voz a lengua de signos

Este artículo presenta un conjunto de experimentos para evaluar la mejora obtenida cuando se incorpora información sintáctico-semántica en la traducción estadística de voz a lengua de signos. La traducción se realiza utilizando dos alternativas tecnológicas: la primera basada en modelos de subsecuencias de palabras y la segunda basada en traductores de estados finitos (“FST”). En cuanto a la evaluación de dichos resultados, se utilizan varias métricas, como WER (tasa de error de palabras), BLEU y NIST. Las pruebas realizadas incluyen experimentos con las frases de referencia en castellano y Lengua de Signos y con frases obtenidas del reconocedor de voz. Para evaluar la mejora obtenida se muestran los resultados con y sin información sintáctico-semántica. Los mejores resultados se obtuvieron con la solución de traductores de estados finitos con unas tasas de error de 26,06% para las frases de referencia y de 33,01% para las salidas del reconocedor cuando se incorpora información sintáctico-semántica

Sistema de Traducción Estadística de Voz a Lengua de Signos para Personas Sordas

Este artículo presenta un conjunto de experimentos para la realización de un sistema de traducción estadística de voz a lengua de signos para personas sordas. Éste contiene un módulo de reconocimiento de voz, uno de traducción estadística de palabras en castellano a signos en Lengua de Signos Española, y un tercer módulo que representa los signos mediante un avatar. La traducción se hace mediante dos alternativas tecnológicas: la primera basada en modelos de subsecuencias de palabras y la segunda basada en transductores de estados finitos. Para la evaluación se utilizan varias métricas, como WER (tasa de error de palabras), BLEU y NIST. Estas pruebas incluyen experimentos con las frases originales en castellano y Lengua de Signos y con frases extraídas del reconocedor de voz. Se evalúan también diferentes situaciones del reconocedor de voz a la hora de obtener el vocabulario y el modelo de lenguaje. Los mejores resultados se obtienen con la traducción mediante transductores de estados finitos dando unas tasas de error de 28,21% para las frases de referencia, y de 29,27% la salida del reconocedor

Pattern recognition in sar images using f ractional r andom f ields and its possible application to the problem of the detection of oil spills in open sea

In this article we present a short proof of a duality principle concerning frame and Riesz sequences due to Ulanovskii and Olevskii. Our proof is derived from a result on compression on orthogonal projections. As a consequence, we get a better lower frame (Riesz) bound for the sequences than the one deduced from the original proof.Fil: Mailing, Agustin Beltran. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto Argentino de Matemática Alberto Calderón; ArgentinaFil: Molina,Segundo. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería; ArgentinaFil: Hamkalo, Jose Luis. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería; ArgentinaFil: Dobarro, Fernando. Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego; ArgentinaFil: Medina, Juan Miguel. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto Argentino de Matemática Alberto Calderón; ArgentinaFil: Cernuschi Frias, Bruno. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto Argentino de Matemática Alberto Calderón; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería; ArgentinaFil: Fernandez, Daniel Alfredo. Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Schlaps, Erica. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego; ArgentinaVII Congreso de Matemática Aplicada, Computacional e IndustrialRio CuartoArgentinaAsociación Argentina de Matemática Aplicada, Computacional e IndustrialUniversidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físico-Química y Naturale

Impact of emotional style on academic goals in pandemic times

The objective of the present study was to determine the incidence of university students’ emotional style on the dimensions of academic goals (academic goals, learning goals, achievement goals and social reinforcement goals). For this study, 780 students of the fifth and sixth cycle of the Health Sciences School at a private university in Lima were chosen. In this quantitative study, of a substantive type, and a causal correlational cross-sectional non-experimental design, The Emotional Style Questionnaire (ESQ) was administered and for academic goals the questionnaire of the same name (CMA). The results evidenced the significant incidence of emotional style in the academic goals of university students with 72.1%; because the reason of plausibility of the logistic model (p<0.05) fits well with the data (Deviation with p<0.05)

Regulatory T-cell Number in Peripheral Blood at 1 Year Posttransplant as Predictor of Long-term Kidney Graft Survival

Background: Regulatory T (Treg) cells play a role in limiting kidney transplant rejection and can potentially promote long-term transplant tolerance. There are no large prospective studies demonstrating the utility of peripheral blood Treg cells as biomarkers for long-term graft outcome in kidney transplantation. The aim of our study was to analyze the influence of the absolute number of peripheral blood Treg cells after transplantation on long-term death-censored graft survival. Methods: We monitored the absolute numbers of Treg cells by flow cytometry in nonfrozen samples of peripheral blood in 133 kidney transplant recipients, who were prospectively followed up to 2 years after transplantation. Death-censored graft survival was determined retrospectively in January 2017. Results: The mean time of clinical follow-up was 7.4 ± 2.9 years and 24.1% patients suffered death-censored graft loss (DCGL). Patients with high Treg cells 1 year after transplantation and above the median value (14.57 cells/mm3), showed better death-censored graft survival (5-year survival, 92.5% vs 81.4%, Log-rank P = .030). One-year Treg cells showed a receiver operating characteristic - area under curve of 63.1% (95% confidence interval, 52.9-73.2%, P = 0.026) for predicting DCGL. After multivariate Cox regression analysis, an increased number of peripheral blood Treg cells was a protective factor for DCGL (hazard ratio, 0.961, 95% confidence interval, 0.924-0.998, P = 0.041), irrespectively of 1-year proteinuria and renal function. Conclusions: Peripheral blood absolute numbers of Treg cells 1 year after kidney transplantation predict a better long-term graft outcome and may be used as prognostic biomarkers

Small RNA profiling reveals regulation of Arabidopsis miR168 and heterochromatic siRNA415 in response to fungal elicitors

[Background] Small RNAs (sRNAs), including small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs), have emerged as important regulators of eukaryotic gene expression. In plants, miRNAs play critical roles in development, nutrient homeostasis and abiotic stress responses. Accumulating evidence also reveals that sRNAs are involved in plant immunity. Most studies on pathogen-regulated sRNAs have been conducted in Arabidopsis plants infected with the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae, or treated with the flagelin-derived elicitor peptide flg22 from P. syringae. This work investigates sRNAs that are regulated by elicitors from the fungus Fusarium oxysporum in Arabidopsis.[Results] Microarray analysis revealed alterations on the accumulation of a set of sRNAs in response to elicitor treatment, including miRNAs and small RNA sequences derived from massively parallel signature sequencing. Among the elicitor-regulated miRNAs was miR168 which regulates ARGONAUTE1, the core component of the RNA-induced silencing complex involved in miRNA functioning. Promoter analysis in transgenic Arabidopsis plants revealed transcriptional activation of MIR168 by fungal elicitors. Furthermore, transgenic plants expressing a GFP-miR168 sensor gene confirmed that the elicitor-induced miR168 is active. MiR823, targeting Chromomethylase3 (CMT3) involved in RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) was also found to be regulated by fungal elicitors. In addition to known miRNAs, microarray analysis allowed the identification of an elicitor-inducible small RNA that was incorrectly annotated as a miRNA. Studies on Arabidopsis mutants impaired in small RNA biogenesis demonstrated that this sRNA, is a heterochromatic-siRNA (hc-siRNA) named as siRNA415. Hc-siRNAs are known to be involved in RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM). SiRNA415 is detected in several plant species.[Conclusion] Results here presented support a transcriptional regulatory mechanism underlying MIR168 expression. This finding highlights the importance of miRNA functioning in adaptive processes of Arabidopsis plants to fungal infection. The results of this study also lay a foundation for the involvement of RdDM processes through the activity of siRNA415 and miR823 in mediating regulation of immune responses in Arabidopsis plants.P. Baldrich is a recipient of a Ph.D grant from the “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Formación de Personal Investigador-FPI, ref. BES-2010-032879). This work was supported by grants BIO2009-08719 and BIO2012-32838 to BSS, AGL2010-14949 to JJLM, and BFU2008-04251 to JLR, from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), and grant 2010–0520193 to JLR from the National Science Foundation (NSF). We acknowledge support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI).Peer Reviewe