Design, implementation and integration of an autonomy payload for a quadruped-legged robot

Aquesta tesi final de màster versa sobre la descripció, disseny i implantació d’un conjunt de millores que fan possible l’autonomia d’un robot quadrúpede. El conjunt de millores descrites es troben separades en dos grups per millorar la comprensió el lector. Aquests són: Hardware i Software. Durant la primera part, es descriu al complet: el dimensionament, el disseny i la implementació dels elements mecànics i electrònics (bateries, ordinador a bord, càmera, i elements passius) que formen part de la millora en el hardware. Aquesta inclou el disseny i impressió en 3D, així com el procés d’acoblament al robot original. Pel que fa a la millora en "Software"; es planteja, descriu, i implementa un observador d’estat amb la intenció futura d’implementar-lo al mateix robot. L’observador es descriu mitjançant l’ús d’un conegut algoritme de fusió de dades anomenat Filtre de Kalman (on, en aquest cas, se n’utilitza la versió estesa). Per provar l’observador dissenyat, es realitza una simulació amb dades generades artificialment a partir d’un model cinemàtic. A continuació, tot i que la futura implantació es pretén que sigui al robot quadrúpede, per poder prova el filtre amb dades reals, es registren les dades del vol d’un dron fent ús de la comunicació ROS1 2 Galactic. De les mateixes dades, es torna a experimentar amb el filtre, però, aquest cop, fent ús del registre de dades del controlador del dron (model PX4). El treball conclou amb quatre estudis addicionals sobre la tasca: econòmic, temporal, social i mediambiental; així com amb unes conclusions que inclouen propostes de futures tasques a portar a capThis master thesis is based on the description, design and implementation of a set of improve- ments that make possible the autonomy of a quadruped robot. The set of improvements described are separated into two large groups that are disassociated in this memory as Hardware and Software, in order to improve the reader’s comprehension. During the first part, the dimensioning, design and implementation of the mechanical and elec- tronic elements (batteries, on-board computer, camera, and passive elements) that are part of the improvement in the hardware is described in full. This part, in turn, includes the design and 3D printing, as well as the assembly process to the original robot. As for the improvement in software, a state observer is proposed, described and implemented with the future intention of being implemented in the robot itself. This is described through the use of a well-known data fusion algorithm called Kalman Filter (which, in this case, is used through its extended version). To test the designed observer, three experiments are performed. The first one is based on a simulation with artificially generated data from a kinematic model. The second is based on real data collected from the flight of a drone. It also uses the ROS2 2 Galactic operating system to establish communication between data. Finally, the third uses data extracted from the drone’s own controller (PX4 model). The thesis ends with four additional studies: economic, temporal, social, and environmental, as well as conclusions that incorporate proposals for future lines of workEsta tesis final de máster se basa en la descripción, diseño e implementación de un conjunto de mejoras que hacen posible la autonomía de un robot cuadrúpedo. El conjunto de mejoras descritas se encuentran separadas en dos grandes grupos que se desasocian en esta memoria como Hardware y Software, a fin de mejorar la compresión del lector. Durante la primera parte, se describe al completo: el dimensionamiento, el diseño y la imple- mentación de los elementos mecánicos y electrónicos (baterías, ordenador a bordo, cámara, y elementos pasivos) que forman parte de la mejora en el hardware. Esta parte, a su vez, incluye el diseño e impresión en 3D, así como el proceso de ensamblaje al robot original. En cuanto a la mejora en software; se plantea, describe e implementa, un observador de estado con la intención futura de ser implementado en el mismo robot. Este se describe mediante el uso de un conocido algoritmo de fusión de datos llamado Filtro de Kalman (que, en este caso, es usado mediante su versión extendida). Para probar el observador diseñado, se realizan tres experimentos. El primero se basa en una simulación con datos generados artificialmente a partir de un modelo cinemático. El segundo, aunque la futura implementación está pensada sobre el robot cuadrúpedo, se realiza utilizando datos reales recogidos del vuelo de un dron, haciendo uso de la comunicación ROS3 2 Galactic. Por último, el tercero utiliza datos extraídos del propio controlador del dron (modelo PX4). La tesis finaliza con cuatro estudios adicionales sobre la misma: económico, temporal, social y medioambiental; así como, con unas conclusiones que incorporan propuestas para futuras líneas de trabaj

Una nueva estampilla sobre ánfora púnico-ebusitana hallada en ses Païsses d’Artà (Mallorca): Nueva luz sobre una distintiva forma ebusitana de estampillado

Here we present the discovery in the Talayotic village of ses Païsses d’Artá (Majorca, Spain) of a fragment of Punic amphora, made in Ibiza, with a new stamp-seal impression. The joint study of the stamp-seal and the context and typology of the amphora allows us to link the new find to other Western amphoric stamp-seals and to analyze all of them in their historical framework (around the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC) in order to advance in the understanding of the origin and function of these particular techniques.Se presenta el hallazgo, en el poblado talayótico mallorquín de ses Païsses d’Artá, de un fragmento de ánfora púnica de fabricación ebusitana con estampilla. El estudio conjunto de la estampilla y del contexto y tipología de su soporte permite poner el nuevo testimonio en relación con otros sellos anfóricos occidentales y analizarlos en su marco histórico (a situar en torno a la destrucción de Cartago en el 146 a. C.), avanzando en la comprensión del origen y función de estos particulares procedimientos

European LeukemiaNet 2017 risk stratification for acute myeloid leukemia: validation in a risk-adapted protocol

The 2017 European LeukemiaNet (ELN 2017) guidelines for the diagnosis and management of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) have become fundamental guidelines to assess the prognosis and postremission therapy of patients. However, they have been retrospectively validated in few studies with patients included in different treatment protocols. We analyzed 861 patients included in the Cooperativo Para el Estudio y Tratamiento de las Leucemias Agudas y Mielodisplasias-12 risk-adapted protocol, which indicates cytarabine-based consolidation for patients allocated to the ELN 2017 favorable-risk group, whereas it recommends allogeneic stem cell transplantation (alloSCT) as a postremission strategy for the ELN 2017 intermediateand adverse-risk groups. We retrospectively classified patients according to the ELN 2017, with 327 (48%), 109 (16%), and 245 (36%) patients allocated to the favorable-, intermediate-, and adverse-risk group, respectively. The 2- and 5-year overall survival (OS) rates were 77% and 70% for favorable-risk patients, 52% and 46% for intermediate-risk patients, and 33% and 23% for adverse-risk patients, respectively. Furthermore, we identified a subgroup of patients within the adverse group (inv(3)/t(3;3), complex karyotype, and/or TP53 mutation/17p abnormality) with a particularly poor outcome, with a 2-year OS of 15%. Our study validates the ELN 2017 risk stratification in a large cohort of patients treated with an ELN-2017 risk-adapted protocol based on alloSCT after remission for nonfavorable ELN subgroups and identifies a genetic subset with a very poor outcome that warrants investigation of novel strategies

Methods to detect spatial biases in tracking studies caused by differential representativeness of individuals, populations and time

Este artículo contiene 20 páginas, 6 figuras, 4 tablas.Aim: Over the last decades, the study of movement through tracking data has grown exceeding the expectations of movement ecologists. This has posed new challenges, specifically when using individual tracking data to infer higher- level distributions (e.g. population and species). Sources of variability such as individual site fidelity (ISF), en-vironmental stochasticity over time, and space-use variability across species ranges must be considered, and their effects identified and corrected, to produce accurate estimates of spatial distribution using tracking data. Innovation: We developed R functions to detect the effect of these sources of vari-ability in the distribution of animal groups when inferred from individual tracking data. These procedures can be adapted for their use in most tracking datasets and tracking techniques. We demonstrated our procedures with simulated datasets and showed their applicability on a real-world dataset containing 1346 year- round migratory trips from 805 individuals of three closely related seabird species breeding in 34 colonies in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, spanning 10 years. We detected an effect of ISF in one of the colonies, but no effect of the environmental stochasticity on the distribution of birds for any of the species. We also identified among-colony variability in nonbreeding space use for one species, with significant effects of popu-lation size and longitude. Main conclusions: This work provides a useful, much- needed tool for researchers using animal tracking data to model species distributions or establish conservation measures. This methodology may be applied in studies using individual tracking data to accurately infer the distribution of a population or species and support the deline-ation of important areas for conservation based on tracking data. This step, designed to precede any analysis, has become increasingly relevant with the proliferation of studies using large tracking datasets that has accompanied the globalization process in science driving collaborations and tracking data sharing initiatives.We thank the following institutions for funding: EU H2020 pro-gramme through grant 634495; Seventh Framework Programme (Research Executive Agency) through Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 618841 (FP7-PEOPLE-2013- CIG); ESFRI LifeWatch Project; LIFE programme of the European Commission through projects LIFE10 NAT/MT090 and LIFE11 NAT/IT/000093; Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación/Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (Spain) through projects CGL2009- 11278/BOS, CGL2013-42585-P, C G L 2 0 1 3 - 4 2 2 0 3 - R , C G L 2 0 16 - 7 8 5 3 0 - R a n d C G L 2 0 17- 8 52 10 - P ; Organismo Autónomo de Parques Nacionales (Spain) through pro-ject 1248/2014; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (MCTES, Portugal) through projects MARE-UID/MAR/04292/2019; IF/00502/2013/CP1186/CT0003, PTDC/BIA-ANM/3743/2014, PTDC/MAR-PRO/0929/2014, UID/AMB/50017/2019 and UIDP/50017/2020 + UIDB/50017/2020 (to CESAM); Office Français de la Biodiversité (France), through the Programme PACOMM, Natura2000 en mer; Hellenic Bird Ringing Centre; MSDEC (Malta). VMP was supported by pre-doctoral contract BES-2014- 068025 of the Spanish Ministerio de Industria, Economía y Competitividad; MM by grant SFRH/BPD/47047/2008 from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; JMRG by Ph.D. grant AP2009-2163 from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación; GDO and MMü by Ornis italica and by the Regione Siciliana and Assessorato Risorse Agricole e Alimentari thoriugh a grant to the Ringing Unit of Palermo; VHP by grant SFRH/BPD/85024/2012 from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; VN by grant SFRH/BPD/88914/2012 from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; and JN by the Spanish National Programme Ramón y Cajal (RYC-2015- 17809); GK and SX were partially funded by the Operational Program “Environment and Sustainable Development” (EPPERAA) of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) 2007-2013, co- financed by the ERDF and Greek EDP; FdF by a Ph.D. grant from the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES—Brazilian government agency; Bex Process 1307/13-4); ZZ by a PhD grant from the University of Barcelona (APIF/2012); MCF by a PhD grant from the University of Barcelona; and RR by post-doctoral contracts of the PLEAMAR programme from MINECO and Fundación Biodiversidad (2017/2349), and Ministerio de Ciencia, in-novación y Universidades (RYC-2017- 22055). This publication is part of the project I+D+i/PID2020-117155GB-I00, funded by MCIN/ AEI/10.13039/501100011033.Peer reviewe

All-cause mortality in the cohorts of the Spanish AIDS Research Network (RIS) compared with the general population: 1997Ł2010

Abstract Background: Combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) has produced significant changes in mortality of HIVinfected persons. Our objective was to estimate mortality rates, standardized mortality ratios and excess mortality rates of cohorts of the AIDS Research Network (RIS) (CoRIS-MD and CoRIS) compared to the general population. Methods: We analysed data of CoRIS-MD and CoRIS cohorts from 1997 to 2010. We calculated: (i) all-cause mortality rates, (ii) standardized mortality ratio (SMR) and (iii) excess mortality rates for both cohort for 100 personyears (py) of follow-up, comparing all-cause mortality with that of the general population of similar age and gender. Results: Between 1997 and 2010, 8,214 HIV positive subjects were included, 2,453 (29.9%) in CoRIS-MD and 5,761 (70.1%) in CoRIS and 294 deaths were registered. All-cause mortality rate was 1.02 (95% CI 0.91-1.15) per 100 py, SMR was 6.8 (95% CI 5.9-7.9) and excess mortality rate was 0.8 (95% CI 0.7-0.9) per 100 py. Mortality was higher in patients with AIDS, hepatitis C virus (HCV) co-infection, and those from CoRIS-MD cohort (1997. Conclusion: Mortality among HIV-positive persons remains higher than that of the general population of similar age and sex, with significant differences depending on the history of AIDS or HCV coinfection

Procés de millora d’una línia de condicionat en la industria farmacèutica

L'objectiu d'aquest Treball Final de Grau és realitzar un estudi en detall sobre una línia de condicionat per tal d'analitzar les causes de la seva baixa productivitat i poder formular millores que millorin tant la seva eficiència com capacitat productiva. El principi d'aquesta memòria introdueix els motius i objectius del projecte. Ambdós es poden trobar en el Prefaci i la Introducció de manera clara perquè marquen el punt de partida i el punt final respectivament. Seguidament, per tal d'entendre quina és l'organització productiva de la línia d'estudi, es realitza una descripció del context. Aquest punt utilitza eines gràfiques per fer una explicació tan clara com sigui possible. És per aquest motiu que es veu un diagrama de flux general i en detall, un diagrama SIPOC i, a manera de resum, un Project Charter. Entès el procés, es realitza l'estudi de la situació inicial per tal d'assolir els objectius fixats a la introducció. Aquest punt comença revelant les fonts informatives usades per fer l'anàlisi. A continuació es realitza el mateix i es finalitza amb les conclusions inicials. De les conclusions inicials es deriven les diferents propostes de millora que s'enllisten en el setè punt de la memòria. Entre elles s'observa des de la creació d'un prototipus per la realització de certes tasques, fins a l'estudi d'útils industrials tals com un Robot col·laboratiu. Aquest punt finalitza amb la realització d’un estudi econòmic de les diferents propostes, on es calcula el període de retorn d'aquestes. Finalment, al novè punt, es fa una menció a una futura línia d'investigació amb relació al procés d'esterilització, i un estudi de l'optimització d'una de les millores proposades. L’abast final del projecte és la proposta al detall de les millores proposades, així com el procés d’optimització d’aquestesObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::9 - Indústria, Innovació i Infraestructur

A review of the combination among global change factors in forests, shrublands and pastures of the Mediterranean Region: Beyond drought effects

Climate change, alteration of atmospheric composition, land abandonment in some areas and land use intensification in others, wildfires and biological invasions threaten forests, shrublands and pastures all over the world. However, the impacts of the combinations between global change factors are not well understood despite its pressing importance. Here we posit that reviewing global change factors combination in an exemplary region can highlight the necessary aspects in order to better understand the challenges we face, warning about the consequences, and showing the challenges ahead of us. The forests, shrublands and pastures of the Mediterranean Basin are an ideal scenario for the study of these combinations due to its spatial and temporal heterogeneity, increasing and diverse human population and the historical legacy of land use transformations. The combination of multiple global change factors in the Basin shows different ecological effects. Some interactions alter the effects of a single factor, as drought enhances or decreases the effects of atmospheric components on plant ecophysiology. Several interactions generate new impacts: drought and land use changes, among others, alter water resources and lead to land degradation, vegetation regeneration decline, and expansion of forest diseases. Finally, different factors can occur alone or simultaneously leading to further increases in the risk of fires and biological invasions. The transitional nature of the Basin between temperate and arid climates involves a risk of irreversible ecosystem change towards more arid states. However, combinations between factors lead to unpredictable ecosystem alteration that goes beyond the particular consequences of drought. Complex global change scenarios should be studied in the Mediterranean and other regions of the world, including interregional studies. Here we show the inherent uncertainty of this complexity, which should be included in any management strategy.The present review is an outcome of the research project MONTESConsolider (CSD2008-00040), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.Peer Reviewe

Cory’s, Scopoli’s, and Cabo Verde shearwaters non-breeding locations [Dataset]

A tabular spreadsheet with the species, colony, unique identifiers for each bird and trip, latitude, longitude, year of tracking (1st year, 2nd year, etc.), and an ordering column that allows the positions to be ordered to form a track.on-breeding locations of Cory’s shearwaters (Calonectris borealis), Scopoli’s shearwaters (C. diomedea), and Cabo Verde shearwaters (C. edwardsii) tracked from the colonies of Berlenga, Chafarinas, Corvo, Faial, Graciosa, Montaña Clara, Pico, Selvagem, Sisargas, Terreros, Timanfaya, Veneguera, and Vila for Cory’s shearwaters; Cala Morell, Chafarinas, Filfla, Frioul, Giraglia, Gozo, Lavezzi, Linosa, Malta, Na Foradada, Na Pobra, Palomas, Pantaleu, Paximada, Porquerolles, Riou, Strofades, Tremiti, and Zembra for Scopoli’s shearwaters; and Curral Velho and Raso for Cabo Verde’s shearwaters. Animals were tracked between the years of 2006 and 2016, and data includes species, colony, unique identifiers for each bird and trip, latitude, longitude, year of tracking (1st year, 2nd year, etc.), and an ordering column that allows the positions to be ordered to form a track.Peer reviewe

Methods to detect spatial biases in tracking studies caused by differential representativeness of individuals, populations and time

Aim: Over the last decades, the study of movement through tracking data has grown exceeding the expectations of movement ecologists. This has posed new challenges, specifically when using individual tracking data to infer higher-level distributions (e.g. population and species). Sources of variability such as individual site fidelity (ISF), environmental stochasticity over time, and space-use variability across species ranges must be considered, and their effects identified and corrected, to produce accurate estimates of spatial distribution using tracking data. Innovation: We developed R functions to detect the effect of these sources of variability in the distribution of animal groups when inferred from individual tracking data. These procedures can be adapted for their use in most tracking datasets and tracking techniques. We demonstrated our procedures with simulated datasets and showed their applicability on a real-world dataset containing 1346 year-round migratory trips from 805 individuals of three closely related seabird species breeding in 34 colonies in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, spanning 10 years. We detected an effect of ISF in one of the colonies, but no effect of the environmental stochasticity on the distribution of birds for any of the species. We also identified among-colony variability in nonbreeding space use for one species, with significant effects of population size and longitude. Main conclusions: This work provides a useful, much-needed tool for researchers using animal tracking data to model species distributions or establish conservation measures. This methodology may be applied in studies using individual tracking data to accurately infer the distribution of a population or species and support the delineation of important areas for conservation based on tracking data. This step, designed to precede any analysis, has become increasingly relevant with the proliferation of studies using large tracking datasets that has accompanied the globalization process in science driving collaborations and tracking data sharing initiatives