Fidelización de usuarios mayores en centros de fitness: gestión de clientes por programas de actividad física

Los centros de fitness, son hoy en día lugares donde los socios realizan actividad física «controlada», donde mejoran su estado físico y mental, incluso en donde se socializan con otros socios de todas las edades. Estos centros, han sido normalmente gestionados por personas sin formación en la materia y con el único interés de tener socios, sin tener en cuenta la repercusión a largo plazo. Este interés, sumado a problemas de gestión del centro, y a problemas personales de los socios, ha propiciado que existan altas tasas de deserción en este tipo de centros indoor, con la consecuente elevación de los gastos en marketing, no obteniendo así, una rentabilidad sostenible. Proponemos, un programa de actividad física con el que se podría mejorar estas tasas de fidelización, siendo el punto central de la gestión de los centros de hoy en día, la satisfacción y la lealtad a los centros de fitnes

Professional preferences of students in physical education and sport sciences

The actual context has enhanced job opportunities in the field of sport in order to respond to the current market demand. Thus, Physical Education and Sport Science graduates who begin to do differents jobs to the traditional ones but relate to their study field. The aim of this study was to guess which are the job preferences of the students of Physical Education and Sport Science of Seville University by gender and age doing the second cycle of their college degree and determine if there are significant differences. A descriptive analysis was carried out, using a questionnaire based on several researches, it was related to professional opportunities in sport sciences. The sample was of 118 students which represented 40.7% of the overall registered students. Results shown that sport management is the most preferable professional opportunity for women and men of the total sample, following in second place by teaching in secondary school for people older than 25 years of both sexes and teaching in primary school for the younger than 25 years. These findings announce changes in occupational trends in sports, to be taken into account in the framework of the European higher education (Degree of Science in Sport and Physical Activity, own US Masters and Official, lifelong learning programs...)

Blockade of the Interaction of Calcineurin with FOXO in Astrocytes Protects Against Amyloid-βInduced Neuronal Death

Astrocytes actively participate in neuro-inflammatory processes associated to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and other brain pathologies. We recently showed that an astrocyte-specific intracellular signaling pathway involving an interaction of the phosphatase calcineurin with the transcription factor FOXO3 is a major driver in AD associated pathological inflammation, suggesting a potential new druggable target for this devastating disease. We have now developed decoy molecules to interfere with calcineurin/FOXO3 interactions, and tested them in astrocytes and neuronal co-cultures exposed to amyloid-β (Aβ) toxicity. We observed that interference of calcineurin/FOXO3 interactions exerts a protective action against A-induced neuronal death and favors the production of a set of growth factors that we hypothesize form part of a cytoprotective pathway to resolve inflammation. Furthermore, interference of the A-induced interaction of calcineurin with FOXO3 by decoy compounds significantly decreased amyloid-β protein precursor (AβPP) synthesis, reduced the AβPP amyloidogenic pathway, resulting in lower Alevels, and blocked the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines TNFα and IL-6 in astrocytes. Collectively, these data indicate that interrupting pro-inflammatory calcineurin/FOXO3 interactions in astrocytes triggered by Aβ accumulation in brain may constitute an effective new therapeutic approach in AD. Future studies with intranasal delivery, or brain barrier permeable decoy compounds, are warranted

Chaotic image encryption using hopfield and hindmarsh–rose neurons implemented on FPGA

Chaotic systems implemented by artificial neural networks are good candidates for data encryption. In this manner, this paper introduces the cryptographic application of the Hopfield and the Hindmarsh–Rose neurons. The contribution is focused on finding suitable coefficient values of the neurons to generate robust random binary sequences that can be used in image encryption. This task is performed by evaluating the bifurcation diagrams from which one chooses appropriate coefficient values of the mathematical models that produce high positive Lyapunov exponent and Kaplan–Yorke dimension values, which are computed using TISEAN. The randomness of both the Hopfield and the Hindmarsh–Rose neurons is evaluated from chaotic time series data by performing National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) tests. The implementation of both neurons is done using field-programmable gate arrays whose architectures are used to develop an encryption system for RGB images. The success of the encryption system is confirmed by performing correlation, histogram, variance, entropy, and Number of Pixel Change Rate (NPCR) tests

Cellular automata and cluster computing: An application to the simulation of laser dynamics

Firstly, the application of a cellular automata (CA) model to simulate the dynamics of lasers is reviewed. With this kind of model, the macroscopic properties of the laser system emerge as a cooperative phenomenon from elementary components locally inter-acting under simple rules. Secondly, a parallel implementation of this kind of model for distributed-memory parallel computers is presented. Performance and scalability of this parallel implementation running on a computer cluster are analyzed, giving very satisfac-tory results. This confirms the feasibility of running large 3D simulations— unaffordable on an individual machine—on computer clusters, in order to simulate specific real laser systems.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2005-08818-C04-0

Science 2.0 supported by Open Access Repositories and Open Linked Data

[EN]The main goal of this track is to gather experiences and works to disseminate initiatives, programmes and projects about both theoretical and technological issues related to Open Knowledge with regard to two key elements: the open access to the scientific knowledge and Science 2.

Open access repositories as channel of publication scientific grey literature

This is the presentation of the paper entitled “Open access repositories as channel of publication scientific grey literature” in the TEEM 2015 International Conference held in Porto (Portugal) in October 7-9, 2015. In this paper we describe how the open access repositories are valid channels for the publication of scientific grey literature. Technological development facilitates the communication of scientific knowledge, allowing expand distribution channels and significantly reducing transmission costs of the investigation. There are new paradigms of scientific communication such as open access repositories that must be exploited to provide academic and research free content, so that the scientific production is globally accessible to society. The aim of this study is to report the benefits of scientific communication model through open access repositories, especially the benefits for scientific grey literature, using as an example the theses deposited in open access and distributed through GREDOS, Institutional Repository of the University of Salamanca. We present the fundamentals, the state of the art, trends and benefits of open access, understood as a radical change in the system of scientific communication. Open Access repositories are a new way to disseminate scientific grey literature so that this literature can achieve maximum dissemination and visibility, increasing the rate of citation. Currently the movement for open access is sufficiently consolidated. Repositories are a key element in the development of this movement, offering multiple benefits, like visibility and citation, to authors, institutions and the general public. Doctoral theses disseminated through the repositories increase their use, visibility and consequently their rate of citation, while contributing to the public good

Performance Analysis of a Parallel Discrete Model for the Simulation of Laser Dynamics

This paper presents an analysis on the performance of a parallel implementation of a discrete model of laser dynamics, which is based on cellular automata. The performance of a 2D parallel version of the model is studied as a rst step to test the feasibility of a parallel 3D version, which is needed to simulate speci c laser systems. The 3D version will have to run on a parallel computer due to its runtime and memory requirements. The model has been implemented on a Beowulf Cluster using the message passing paradigm. The parallel implementation is found to exhibit a good speedup, allowing us to run realistic simulations of laser systems on clusters of workstations, which could not be afforded on an individual machine due to the extensive runtime and memory size needed.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIC2002-04498-C05-0

Parallel implementation of a cellular automaton model for the simulation of laser dynamics

A parallel implementation for distributed-memory MIMD systems of a 2D discrete model of laser dynamics based on cellular au- tomata is presented. The model has been implemented on a PC cluster using a message passing library. A good performance has been obtained, allowing us to run realistic simulations of laser systems in clusters of workstations, which could not be a orded on an individual machine due to the extensive runtime and memory size needed.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2005-08818-C04-0

Interaction of nanoparticles with substrates: effects on the dipolar behaviour of the particles

In this work, we present a numerical analysis of the surface electric field of a metallic nanoparticle (either 2D or 3D) interacting with a flat substrate underneath. The influence of the distance to the substrate, particle size, the surrounding media and the substrate optical properties is analyzed as a function of the incident wavelength. We show that these are crucial factors that change the field distribution associated to the dipolar behavior of the particle. A useful parameter for illustrating the changes in the angular distribution is θmax , the angle at which the maximum of the surface electric field is located