Student’s empowerment from the sMOOC model

Los MOOC han traído consigo multitud de oportunidades que aportar a un panorama educativo que se encuentra a falta de nuevos estímulos para fomentar una educación de calidad. Los sMOOC en particular, favorecen un mayor protagonismo del alumnado, tanto en el modelo comunicativo que desarrollan como en el pedagógico. Las redes sociales contribuyen a esta labor desempeñando un papel prioritario en el proceso de aprendizaje, al conectar a todos los agentes que participan, y brindarles oportunidades que les posibiliten ser escuchados y transformar la capa social. El empoderamiento del alumnado es clave en este proceso de evolución educativa, y desde el Proyecto ECO se ha potenciado esta propuesta, ofreciendo la posibilidad de crear tu propio sMOOC, en los que se hace patente el empoderamiento ciudadano invirtiendo el aula donde el alumnado pasa a ser eteacher.MOOCs have brought many opportunities to contribute to the educational system, which needs new incentives in order to promote education of good quality. sMOOC in particular, enhance students participation both in the educational model and in the pedagogical one. Social Networks contribute in this work having a priority role in the learning process because they establish different connections between all the agents who participate in this process, and give them the opportunity to be listened and to transform their reality. Student’s empowerment is the key in this educational evolution process and from the UNED together with the ECO project; this proposal has been promoted by offering students the possibility of creating their own sMOOC in which citizens’ empowerment is shown in an inverted class where students turn into eteachers

México: Disminuye Población Católica y Aumenta Población Diferente a la Católica, Sin Religión y Opción No Especificada

In Mexico there has been a census tradition since 1895, in which the religious preferences of its population have been captured. Therefore, we can analyze the religious change that the country has experienced over 125 years. This work shows the gradual decline of the Catholic population in Mexico and, as a counterpart, the increase in the non-Catholic population, the population without religion and the population whose religious affiliation has not been able to be counted due to methodological deficiencies or simply because said population has not wanted to express their religious belonging

Heavyweight extensions to the UML metamodel to describe the C3 architectural style

UML is widely accepted as the standard for representing the various software artifacts generated by a development process. For this reason, there have been attempts to use this language to represent the software architecture of systems as well. Unfortunately, these attempts have ended in the same representations (boxes and lines) already criticized by the software architecture community.In this work we propose an extension to the UML metamodel that is able to represent the syntactics and semantics of the C3 architectural style. This style is derived from C2. The modifications to define C3 are described in section 4. This proposal is innovative regarding UML extensions for software architectures, since previous proposals where based on light extensions to the UML meta-model, while we propose a heavyweight extension of the metamodel. On the other hand, this proposal is less ambitious than previous proposals, since we do not want to represent in UML any architectural style, but only one: C3

Utilizando CORBA para distribuir aplicaciones intensivas en cálculo

Actualmente se están utilizando supercomputadores para resolver problemas intensivos en cálculo tales como las previsiones meteorológicas, el aprendizaje de redes neuronales artificiales o incluso aplicaciones lúdicas como el ajedrez. El uso de esta tecnología queda limitado a las grandes corporaciones con medios financieros suficientes como para abordar la adquisición de tales ordenadores. La distribución del cálculo entre varios ordenadores es una solución más barata para aquellos casos en los que la aplicación es susceptible de ser distribuida. De hecho, es la única solución para muchas empresas que no pueden adquirir supercomputadores y que sin embargo soportan aplicaciones que precisan de mucha potencia de cálculo (por ejemplo, el análisis de imágenes). En este artículo mostraremos cómo utilizando un middelware, CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture), y una implementación concreta de este, DST (Distributed Smalltalk), es posible distribuir una aplicación entre varios ordenadores de una manera elegante y escalable y cómo el trabajo cooperativo de varios ordenadores disminuye significativamente el tiempo total de cómputo. Creemos que esta forma de distribución puede solucionar muchos de los problemas de tiempos de ejecución con los que se enfrentan actualmente las empresas de desarrollo softwar

Debiasing EQ-5D Tariffs. New estimations of the spanish EQ-5D value set under nonexpected utility

Este proyecto tiene como objetivo estimar las utilidades asociadas a los estados de salud definidos mediante el sistema EuroQol-5D a partir de la medición directa de las preferencias de una muestra de la población andaluza. Los valores obtenidos serán susceptibles de ser utilizados en el marco de estudios de evaluación económica de políticas sanitarias (análisis coste-utilidad) realizados en la comunidad andaluza y en el conjunto del estado. Para la valoración directa de un subconjunto de estados de salud se realizará una encuesta personal asistida por ordenador a una muestra representativa por sexo y cuotas de edad de la población española, extraída de la población residente en Andalucía. Los métodos que se aplicarán para obtener las preferencias y calcular las utilidades tratarán de corregir algunos de los sesgos que pueden afectar a las estimaciones existentes. Así, se adoptarán enfoques teóricos alternativos a los habitualmente empleados que permitirán relajar algunos de los supuestos que han sido puestos en cuestión a la luz de la evidencia empírica, como es el caso de la linealidad de la función de utilidad del tiempo de vida, la validez descriptiva de la teoría de la utilidad esperada o la separabilidad multiplicativa de las preferencias por cantidad y calidad de vida.EQ-5D, social tariff, utility curvature, probability weighting, rank-dependent utility, time trade-off, value lottery equivalence, certainlty equivalence

¿Qué podemos saber sobre el Valor Estadístico de la Vida en España utilizando datos laborales?

This paper analyzes what can be learned about the value of a statistical life (VSL) using the hedonic wage model. The time series variation of cross sectional estimates, along with the endogeneity of risk choices and the absence of adequate instruments recommends moving to panel data analysis. These estimates show that the evidence of a positive and significant VSL stems from people changing jobs possibly endogenously. Once again the absence of valid instruments recommends an alternative strategy and we move to identify bounds on the VSL. Controlling for measurement error and individual heterogeneity yields a range for the estimated VSL of 2.8-8.3 million Euros.Value of statistical life; hedonic wages; endogeneity; panel data.

A Mixed Data-Based Deep Neural Network to Estimate Leaf Area Index in Wheat Breeding Trials

Remote and non-destructive estimation of leaf area index (LAI) has been a challenge in the last few decades as the direct and indirect methods available are laborious and time-consuming. The recent emergence of high-throughput plant phenotyping platforms has increased the need to develop new phenotyping tools for better decision-making by breeders. In this paper, a novel model based on artificial intelligence algorithms and nadir-view red green blue (RGB) images taken from a terrestrial high throughput phenotyping platform is presented. The model mixes numerical data collected in a wheat breeding field and visual features extracted from the images to make rapid and accurate LAI estimations. Model-based LAI estimations were validated against LAI measurements determined non-destructively using an allometric relationship obtained in this study. The model performance was also compared with LAI estimates obtained by other classical indirect methods based on bottom-up hemispherical images and gaps fraction theory. Model-based LAI estimations were highly correlated with ground-truth LAI. The model performance was slightly better than that of the hemispherical image-based method, which tended to underestimate LAI. These results show the great potential of the developed model for near real-time LAI estimation, which can be further improved in the future by increasing the dataset used to train the model

Method to guide the design of project based learning activities based on educational theories

Project Based Learning (PjBL) has shown to be effective in engineering to acquire both professional and lifelong learning skills. Nevertheless, some authors assert it is not an easy instructional method to implement. It requires teaching skills and entails some difficulties for both students and teachers, specially related to the time and effort needed to put it into practice. In some countries, the implementation of PjBL has a limited scope, restricted to single courses that do not have a great repercussion in the curriculum. Moreover, some teachers tend to implement PjBL intuitively, based on their teaching experience instead of following important PjBL principies or instructional practices. To facilítate the proliferation and better establishment of PjBL in these countries, it is necessary to engage more teachers in best practices of this methodology, applying its main instructional principies and adequate educational theories. In this way, they could overeóme the difficulties mentioned above and obtain better results in their experiences. This study is aimed at defining a method to design activities based on PjBL. This method guides teachers in the use of PjBL principies and several instructional design models. In particular, the method deals with the definition and articulation of an appropriate problem. In addition, it faces three fundamental issues in active learning and especially in PjBL: Students' Motivation, Supporting Students' Work and Autonomous Working. This proposal is specially focused on those academic contexts in which instructors are starting to use this methodology and students are not used to dealing with ill-structured projeets, and consequently they could find important difficulties in its implementation. The method has been put into practice in three courses, where first results seem to be satisfactory according to a survey conducted by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Results spanning the last six years of this survey have been analyzed. Currently, it is being used to implement a multidisciplinary project which covers four courses in a Master's degree. Finally, a collaborative online tool and teacher workshop further supports this method

Application of knowledge engineering acquisition techniques to requirements capture: a case study

In this paper we want to point out, by means of a case study, the importance of incorporating some knowledge engineering techniques to the processes of software engineering. Precisely, we are referring to the knowledge eduction techniques. We know the difficulty of requirements acquisition and its importance to minimise the risks of a software project, both in the development phase and in the maintenance phase. To capture the functional requirements use cases are generally used. However, as we will show in this paper, this technique is insufficient when the problem domain knowledge is only in the "experts? mind". In this situation, the combination of the use case with eduction techniques, in every development phase, will let us to discover the correct requirements

Measuring the influence of Cooperative Learning and Project Based Learning on problem solvin skill.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects obtained after applying two active learning methodologies (cooperative learning and project based learning) to the achievement of the competence problem solving. This study was carried out at the Technical University of Madrid, where these methodologies were applied to two Operating Systems courses. The first hypothesis tested was whether the implementation of active learning methodologies favours the achievement of ?problem solving?. The second hypothesis was focused on testing if students with higher rates in problem solving competence obtain better results in their academic performance. The results indicated that active learning methodologies do not produce any significant change in the generic competence ?problem solving? during the period analysed. Concerning this, we consider that students should work with these methodologies for a longer period, besides having a specific training. Nevertheless, a close correlation between problem solving self appraisal and academic performance has been detected