Inferential sensor for the olive oil industry

This paper shows an inferential sensor that has been developed to be used in the olive oil industry. This sensor has been designed to measure two variables that appear in the elaboration of olive oil in a mill which are very difficult to be measured on line by a physical sensor. The knowledge of these variables on line is crucial for the optimal operation of the process, since they provide the state of the plant, allowing the development of a control strategy that can improve the quality and yield of the product. This sensor measures variables that in other case should come form laboratory analysis with large processing delays or from very expensive and difficult to use on line analysers. The sensor has been devised based upon artificial Neural Networks (NN) and has been implemented as a routine running on a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and successfully tested on a real plant.Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología DPI2001-2380-C02-0

A Risk-Based Model Predictive Control Approach to Adaptive Interventions in Behavioral Health

This brief examines how control engineering and risk management techniques can be applied in the field of behavioral health through their use in the design and implementation of adaptive behavioral interventions. Adaptive interventions are gaining increasing acceptance as a means to improve prevention and treatment of chronic, relapsing disorders, such as abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, mental illness, and obesity. A risk-based model predictive control (MPC) algorithm is developed for a hypothetical intervention inspired by Fast Track, a real-life program whose long-term goal is the prevention of conduct disorders in at-risk children. The MPC-based algorithm decides on the appropriate frequency of counselor home visits, mentoring sessions, and the availability of after-school recreation activities by relying on a model that includes identifiable risks, their costs, and the cost/benefit assessment of mitigating actions. MPC is particularly suited for the problem because of its constraint-handling capabilities, and its ability to scale to interventions involving multiple tailoring variables. By systematically accounting for risks and adapting treatment components over time, an MPC approach as described in this brief can increase intervention effectiveness and adherence while reducing waste, resulting in advantages over conventional fixed treatment. A series of simulations are conducted under varying conditions to demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm

Oncogenic context shapes the fitness landscape of tumor suppression

We are grateful to all members of D2G Oncology for expert advice and helpful comments. We thank Explora and The Jackson Laboratory for expert animal care. We would like to acknowledge the American Association for Cancer Research and its financial and material support in the development of the AACR Project GENIE registry, as well as members of the consortium for their commitment to data sharing (interpretations are the responsibility of the study authors). We thank AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Revolution Medicines, Merck KGaA, and CureTeq for generously allowing the inclusion of data generated in collaboration with D2G Oncology. L.E.D. is the Burt Gwirtzman Research Scholar in Lung Cancer. D.A.P. and M.M.W. are supported by NIH R01-CA 234349. This work was supported in part by NIH SBIR R44-CA250672.Tumors acquire alterations in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes in an adaptive walk through the fitness landscape of tumorigenesis. However, the interactions between oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes that shape this landscape remain poorly resolved and cannot be revealed by human cancer genomics alone. Here, we use a multiplexed, autochthonous mouse platform to model and quantify the initiation and growth of more than one hundred genotypes of lung tumors across four oncogenic contexts: KRAS G12D, KRAS G12C, BRAF V600E, and EGFR L858R. We show that the fitness landscape is rugged—the effect of tumor suppressor inactivation often switches between beneficial and deleterious depending on the oncogenic context—and shows no evidence of diminishing-returns epistasis within variants of the same oncogene. These findings argue against a simple linear signaling relationship amongst these three oncogenes and imply a critical role for off-axis signaling in determining the fitness effects of inactivating tumor suppressors.American Association for Cancer ResearchACR Project GENIEAstraZenecaBristol-Myers Squibb R01-CA 234349, SBIR R44-CA250672Merck KGa

Predicción del rendimiento académico en las nuevas titulaciones de grado de la EPS de la Universidad de Córdoba

En este artículo se describe una experiencia de innovación docente que tiene como finalidad predecir el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes de primer curso de grado universitario utilizando técnicas de minería de datos. La investigación se ha realizado utilizando información de los alumnos de tres asignaturas de introducción a la informática que se han impartido durante el primer cuatrimestre del curso 2010-11 en las distintas titulaciones de grado de la Escuela Politécnica Superior de la Universidad de Córdoba.SUMMARY -- In this paper, we describe an educational innovation experience about the prediction of the students’ academic performance during the first year of university degree by applying data mining techniques. The research has been carried out by using the information of students of three subjects about introduction to computer science during the first semester of 2010-11 academic year in the different degrees of the Higher Technical College of the University of Cordoba.Peer Reviewe

Tucumanin, a β-hydroxy-γ-lactone bistetrahydrofuranic acetogenin from Annona cherimolia, is a potent inhibitor of mitochondrial complex I

A new β-hydroxy-γ-methyl-γ-lactone bistetrahydrofuranic acetogenin, tucumanin, with the infrequent symmetrical threo/trans/threo/trans/ threo relative configuration at the tetrahydrofuran rings was isolated from Annona cherimolia (Annonaceae) seeds. The inhibitory potency on the mitochondrial complex I of acetogenins with this relative configuration (tucumanin and asimicin) was compared with that shown by the corresponding pairs with an asymmetrical threo/trans/threo/trans/erythro relative configuration (laherradurin/rolliniastatin-2, and itrabin/molvizarin). All these compounds act as selective inhibitors of mitochondrial complex 1 in the 0.18 - 1.55 nM range.Fil: Barrachina, Isabel. Universidad de Valencia; EspañaFil: Neske, Adriana. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán; ArgentinaFil: Granell, Susana. Universidad de Valencia; EspañaFil: Bermejo, Almudena. Universidad de Valencia; EspañaFil: Chahboune, Nadia. Universidad de Valencia; EspañaFil: El Aouad, Noureddine. Universidad de Valencia; EspañaFil: Alvarez, Olga. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán; ArgentinaFil: Bardon, Alicia del Valle. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucumán. Instituto de Química del Noroeste. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Facultad de Bioquímica, Química y Farmacia. Instituto de Química del Noroeste; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán; ArgentinaFil: Zafra Polo, M. Carmen. Universidad de Valencia; Españ

Study of Deformation Effects in the Charged Particle Emission from 46Ti

The 46Ti compound nucleus, as populated by the fusion-evaporation reaction 27Al + 19F at the bombarding energy of 144 MeV, has been investigated by charged particle spectroscopy using the multidetector array ICARE at the VIVITRON tandem facility of the IReS (Strasbourg). The light charged particles have been measured in coincidence with evaporation residues. The CACARIZO code, a Monte Carlo implementation of the statistical-model code CASCADE, has been used to calculate the spectral shapes of evaporated alpha-particles which are compared with the experimental spectra. This comparison indicates the possible signature of large deformations of the compound nucleus.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings od the Zakopane 20004 Symposium, to be published in Acta Phys. Pol. B36 (2005

Los programas acuáticos en las piscinas públicas cubiertas: rentabilidad social y económica

En la actualidad en Andalucía se están produciendo importantes inversiones en la construcción de piscinas cubiertas públicas, por lo que parece necesario determinar indicadores que permitan aplicar fórmulas que mejoren la gestión y oferta deportiva que se está llevando en este tipo de instalaciones. Los programas acuáticos son una parte fundamental en la programación de actividades que se desarrollan en las piscinas cubiertas. Dada su contrastada importancia es necesario conocer la respuesta social de los usuarios frente a la oferta de estos programas y su repercusión en el balance económico de la instalación, pudiendo de esta forma llegar a proponer una oferta de actividades en la lámina de agua, que se ajuste tanto a las exigencias de los usuarios, como a las necesidades de la instalación para equilibrar su balance económico

The political hourglass: opportunistic behavior in local government policy decisions

The aim of this article is to determine whether there is opportunistic behavior in local government decisions related to contracting out, public-private partnership (PPP) and/or public externalization. Analysis of the results obtained from applying a fixed effects panel data model to a sample of 2,274 Spanish municipalities supports the existence of asymmetric opportunistic behavior. Specifically, there is strong evidence that in preelection years, there is less likelihood of contracting out and PPP decisions being approved, and a greater probability of public externalization taking place. In post-election years, an increase in capital spending is associated with a lower probability of contracting out and of PPP. An increase in current spending in preelection years reduces the probability of decisions being taken on contracting out and PPP. These empirical results highlight the extent of opportunistic behavior in selecting management forms for the delivery of local government services

Systematic Review On Bullying Situations And Intervention Programs In Early Childhood Education

Background: Bullying is a traumatic event that is observed from the early stages of the educational system. Ensuring an adequate socioemotional development through the implementation of activities or intervention programs based on the work of Emotional Intelligence in the Early Childhood Education stage where empathy, assertiveness, emotional intelligence, social skills, values... are worked on, with the aim of preventing/eradicating situations of violence in educational environments, is essential to put an end to this problem. Goal: To find out whether there is evidence of bullying at the early childhood education (ECE) stage and to investigate whether bullying prevention work is carried out at this educational stage. Method: A systematic review, following the PRISMA 2020 Declaration, was carried out in the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus (SJR) databases from January to March 2023. The search terms used were: "Children", "Health Education" and "Bullying". Only articles in Spanish and English published from 2013 to 2023 were selected, in which bullying in the ECE stage is analyzed. The last filter applied was related with research areas of Psychology and Education. The sample is composed of a total of 4 articles, most of them published abroad. Findings: According to the studies reviewed, there is little concern about bullying at the ECE stage, and there is little concern about the implementation of prevention programs for this proble

Ternary cluster decay within the liquid drop model

Longitudinal ternary and binary fission barriers of $^{36}$Ar, $^{56}$Ni and $^{252}$Cf nuclei have been determined within a rotational liquid drop model taking into account the nuclear proximity energy. For the light nuclei the heights of the ternary fission barriers become competitive with the binary ones at high angular momenta since the maximum lies at an outer position and has a much higher moment of inertia.Comment: Talk presented at the 9th International Conference on Clustering Aspects of Nuclear Structure and Dynamics (CLUSTERS'07