A broad-coverage distributed connectionist model of visual word recognition

In this study we describe a distributed connectionist model of morphological processing, covering a realistically sized sample of the English language. The purpose of this model is to explore how effects of discrete, hierarchically structured morphological paradigms, can arise as a result of the statistical sub-regularities in the mapping between word forms and word meanings. We present a model that learns to produce at its output a realistic semantic representation of a word, on presentation of a distributed representation of its orthography. After training, in three experiments, we compare the outputs of the model with the lexical decision latencies for large sets of English nouns and verbs. We show that the model has developed detailed representations of morphological structure, giving rise to effects analogous to those observed in visual lexical decision experiments. In addition, we show how the association between word form and word meaning also give rise to recently reported differences between regular and irregular verbs, even in their completely regular present-tense forms. We interpret these results as underlining the key importance for lexical processing of the statistical regularities in the mappings between form and meaning

Reliability evaluation of III-V concentrator solar cells

Concentrator solar cells have been proposed as an interesting way of reducing the cost of photovoltaic electricity. However, in order to compete with conventional solar modules it is necessary not only to reduce costs but also to evaluate and increase the present reliability. Concentrator solar cells work at higher temperature, solar radiation and current stress than conventional solar cells and a carefully reliability analysis is needed. In this paper a reliability analysis procedure, that is being developed, is presented

Opportunities for reducing environmental emissions from forage-based dairy farms

Modern dairy production is inevitably associated with impacts to the environment and the challenge for the industry today is to increase production to meet growing global demand while minimising emissions to the environment. Negative environmental impacts include gaseous emissions to the atmosphere, of ammonia from livestock manure and fertiliser use, of methane from enteric fermentation and manure management, and of nitrous oxide from nitrogen applications to soils and from manure management. Emissions to water include nitrate, ammonium, phosphorus, sediment, pathogens and organic matter, deriving from nutrient applications to forage crops and/or the management of grazing livestock. This paper reviews the sources and impacts of such emissions in the context of a forage-based dairy farm and considers a number of potential mitigation strategies, giving some examples using the farm-scale model SIMSDAIRY. Most of the mitigation measures discussed are associated with systemic improvements in the efficiency of production in dairy systems. Important examples of mitigations include: improvements to dairy herd fertility, that can reduce methane and ammonia emissions by up to 24 and 17%, respectively; diet modification such as the use of high sugar grasses for grazing, which are associated with reductions in cattle N excretion of up to 20% (and therefore lower N losses to the environment) and potentially lower methane emissions, or reducing the crude protein content of the dairy cow diet through use of maize silage to reduce N excretion and methane emissions; the use of nitrification inhibitors with fertiliser and slurry applications to reduce nitrous oxide emissions and nitrate leaching by up to 50%. Much can also be achieved through attention to the quantity, timing and method of application of nutrients to forage crops and utilising advances made through genetic improvements

An application of chance-constrained model predictive control to inventory management in hospitalary pharmacy

Trabajo presentado a la 53rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2014), celebrada del 15 al 17 de diciembre en Los Angeles, California (US).-- et al.Inventory management is one of the main tasks that the pharmacy department has to carry out in a hospital. It is a complex problem that requires to establish a tradeoff between different and contradictory optimization criteria. The complexity of the problem is increased due to the constraints that naturally arise in this type of applications. In this paper, which corresponds to preliminary works performed to implement advanced control techniques for pharmacy management in two Spanish hospitals, we propose and assess chance-constrained model predictive control (CC-MPC) as a mean to relieve this issue.The authors would like to acknowledge Junta de Andalucía (Pharmacon-trol Project, P12-TIC-2400), for funding this work.Peer Reviewe

Trepan Reloaded: A Knowledge-driven Approach to Explaining Artificial Neural Networks

Explainability in Artificial Intelligence has been revived as a topic of active research by the need of conveying safety and trust to users in the `how' and `why' of automated decision-making. Whilst a plethora of approaches have been developed for post-hoc explainability, only a few focus on how to use domain knowledge, and how this influences the understandability of global explanations from the users' perspective. In this paper, we show how ontologies help the understandability of global post-hoc explanations, presented in the form of symbolic models. In particular, we build on Trepan, an algorithm that explains artificial neural networks by means of decision trees, and we extend it to include ontologies modeling domain knowledge in the process of generating explanations. We present the results of a user study that measures the understandability of decision trees using a syntactic complexity measure, and through time and accuracy of responses as well as reported user confidence and understandability. The user study considers domains where explanations are critical, namely, in finance and medicine. The results show that decision trees generated with our algorithm, taking into account domain knowledge, are more understandable than those generated by standard Trepan without the use of ontologies

Glyphosate-Resistant Parthenium hysterophorus in the Caribbean Islands: Non Target Site Resistance and Target Site Resistance in Relation to Resistance Levels

Peer reviewedGlyphosate has been the most intensely herbicide used worldwide for decades, and continues to be a single tool for controlling weeds in woody crops. However, the adoption of this herbicide in a wide range of culture systems has led to the emergence of resistant weeds. Glyphosate has been widely used primarily on citrus in the Caribbean area, but a study of resistance in the Caribbean islands of Cuba and the Dominican Republic has never been carried out. Unfortunately, Parthenium hysterophorus has developed glyphosate-resistance in both islands, independently. The resistance level and mechanisms of different P. hysterophorus accessions (three collected in Cuba (Cu-R) and four collected in the Dominican Republic (Do-R) have been studied under greenhouse and laboratory conditions. In in vivo assays (glyphosate dose causing 50% reduction in above-ground vegetative biomass and survival), the resistance factor levels showed susceptible accessions (Cu-S ≥ Do-S), low-resistance accessions (Cu-R3 Do-R2 > Cu-R2 > Do-R3 > Do-R4 > Cu-R3 >> Cu-S ≥ Do-S). Glyphosate was degraded to aminomethylphosphonic acid, glyoxylate and sarcosine by >88% in resistant accessions except in Cu-R3 and Do-R4 resistant accessions (51.12 and 44.21, respectively), whereas a little glyphosate (<9.32%) was degraded in both susceptible accessions at 96 h after treatment. There were significant differences between P. hysterophorus accessions in the 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS) activity enzyme with and without different glyphosate rates. The R accessions showed values of between 0.026 and 0.21 μmol μg−1 TSP protein min−1 basal EPSPS activity values with respect to the S (0.024 and 0.025) accessions. The same trend was found in the EPSPS enzyme activity treated with glyphosate, where a higher enzyme activity inhibition (glyphosate μM) corresponded to greater resistance levels in P. hysterophorus accessions. One amino acid substitution was found at position 106 in EPSPS, consisting of a proline to serine change in Cu-R1, Do-R1 Do-R2. The above-mentioned results indicate that high resistance values are determined by the number of defense mechanisms (target-site and non-target-site resistance) possessed by the different P. hysterophorus accessions, concurrently.This work was funded by AGL2013-48946-C3-1-R and AGL2016-78944-R projects (Spain).Peer Reviewe

MODELO DE SISTEMA DE CONTROL AEROESPACIAL Y LA DEFENSA Y DESARROLLO ESTRATÉGICO DEL ESTADO EN LA AMAZONIA

La presente investigación está relacionada con la necesidad estratégica del Estado del Perú de contar con un Modelo de Sistema de Control Aeroespacial (SCA) adecuado con su realidad, en consecuencia fue necesario analizar diversos enfoques teóricos para finalmente proponer un modelo basado en principios, debido a que en particular este modelo identifica relaciones permanentes entre causa y efectos, por lo tanto; modelar la complejidad del Sistema de Control Aeroespacial (SCA) a partir de ciertos principios, evitará que existan inconvenientes desfases en la etapa de dimensión estructural y organización del sistema que traiga como consecuencia sobre costos y riesgos de sostenibilidad en el futuro. El objetivo de la investigación es proponer un modelo de Sistema de Control Aeroespacial (SCA) eficaz para la Defensa y Desarrollo estratégico del Estado en la AmazonÍa del Perú. Se ha delimitado a este sector geográfico en particular, debido a su importancia estratégica y al interés global por la conservación de la AmazonÍa. Se trata de una investigación descriptiva con propuesta de enfoque cuantitativo, porque representa un conjunto de procesos desarrollados de manera secuencial que permiten probar o rechazar las hipótesis planteadas, con base a la medición y evaluación numérica y el análisis estadístico, además es de alcance descriptivo debido a que describe y asocia los efectos en la Defensa y Desarrollo de un Modelo de Sistema de Control Aeroespacial.En cuanto al diseño, se trata de una investigación no experimental, debido a que no intenta manipular deliberadamente las variables independientes para demostrar efectos en las variables dependientes, simplemente se describen los resultados positivos que ya han sido probados en otras realidades; asimismo, es transeccional porque los datos han sido recogidos en un momento único y no se pretende dar seguimiento a las variables en diferentes momentos y circunstancias.Se emplearon diferentes métodos y materiales, que ayudaron a consolidar los resultados, la investigación teórica y de campo confirmó las hipótesis planteadas y corroboró la necesidad de priorizar la implementación de un Sistema de Control Aeroespacial, por tener un impacto sistémico positivo en la Defensa y Desarrollo de la Amazonía. La investigación ha determinado que existe un limitado control aeroespacial por parte del Comando y Control Aeroespacial (COMCA) de la F.A.P. y a pesar de que este sistema ha dado importantes resultados en otras realidades como la Brasileña, la implementación del SCA no se ha llevado a cabo hasta la fecha por una inadecuada priorización de inversiones del Estado y un conflicto de intereses entre algunas de sus entidades, también se ha determinado que una organización mecánica burocrática es la que mejor se adecúa a su misión y que se trata de un proyecto de alta rentabilidad económica y social, finalmente el marco legal respecto de la inversión pública y las compensaciones industriales OFFSET configuran aspectos legales esenciales para su implementación y sostenibilidad. Palabras Clave: Modelo, Sistema, Modelo de Sistema de Control Aeroespacial, Amazonia, información

Herramientas TIC para la enseñanza de programación, empleando aula invertida

La incorporación de las TIC (Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación) en el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje y la necesidad de un cambio de rol del docente, conducen a la transformación de la metodología actual a una nueva modalidad donde el alumno sea autónomo de su aprendizaje, creativo, crítico y para ello se requiere que el docente asumiendo un nuevo rol, lo acompañe en este proceso. Por este motivo se llevó a cabo la implementación de la clase invertida, que permitió al alumno emplear diversas herramientas interactivas creadas por el docente fuera del horario de clase y emplear ese tiempo presencial para realizar actividades más complejas, con ejercicios relacionados a la vida real. Este trabajo describe una experiencia de clase invertida realizada en programación en lenguaje C, en la materia “Informática” de la carrera Ingeniería Electrónica de la Universidad Nacional de Catamarca, realizada durante el ciclo lectivo 2017 segundo cuatrimestre, con la totalidad de alumnos inscriptos en la materia. Se concretó la experiencia en la segunda mitad del cuatrimestre, empleando como campus virtual la plataforma Moodle adoptada por la facultad de Tecnología y Ciencias Aplicadas de la Universidad Nacional de Catamarca (UNCa). Se presentan resultados obtenidos sobre la metodología como así también de las diferentes herramientas empleadas y el nivel de satisfacción por parte de los alumnos. Los resultados se desprenden de una encuesta en línea realizada al finalizar el ciclo lectivo en curso.ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) implementation in the teachinglearning process and the need for changing the teacher’s role, lead to a transformation of the current teaching methodology to a new modality promoting autonomous, creative, critical students. For this purpose, teachers need to assume a new role, accompanying them in this process. Consequently, at the Faculty of Technology and Applied Sciences, the flipped classroom methodology was applied, allowing students to use- outside the classroom- various interactive tools created by the teacher and to apply classroom time to perform more complex activities, with exercises related to real life. This work describes a flipped classroom experience carried out in C language programming, in the subject "Computer Science" of the Electronic Engineering career of the National University of Catamarca (UNCa). The experience was carried out during the second term, 2017 year, with all the students enrolled in the subject. It was completed in the second half of the semester, using as a virtual campus the Moodle platform adopted by the Faculty. Results obtained on the applied methodology as well as the different tools used and the level of satisfaction on the part of the students are shown in this paper. Results derive from an online survey conducted at the end of the academic year.Experiencias docentes.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Herramientas TIC para la enseñanza de programación, empleando aula invertida

La incorporación de las TIC (Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación) en el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje y la necesidad de un cambio de rol del docente, conducen a la transformación de la metodología actual a una nueva modalidad donde el alumno sea autónomo de su aprendizaje, creativo, crítico y para ello se requiere que el docente asumiendo un nuevo rol, lo acompañe en este proceso. Por este motivo se llevó a cabo la implementación de la clase invertida, que permitió al alumno emplear diversas herramientas interactivas creadas por el docente fuera del horario de clase y emplear ese tiempo presencial para realizar actividades más complejas, con ejercicios relacionados a la vida real. Este trabajo describe una experiencia de clase invertida realizada en programación en lenguaje C, en la materia “Informática” de la carrera Ingeniería Electrónica de la Universidad Nacional de Catamarca, realizada durante el ciclo lectivo 2017 segundo cuatrimestre, con la totalidad de alumnos inscriptos en la materia. Se concretó la experiencia en la segunda mitad del cuatrimestre, empleando como campus virtual la plataforma Moodle adoptada por la facultad de Tecnología y Ciencias Aplicadas de la Universidad Nacional de Catamarca (UNCa). Se presentan resultados obtenidos sobre la metodología como así también de las diferentes herramientas empleadas y el nivel de satisfacción por parte de los alumnos. Los resultados se desprenden de una encuesta en línea realizada al finalizar el ciclo lectivo en curso.ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) implementation in the teachinglearning process and the need for changing the teacher’s role, lead to a transformation of the current teaching methodology to a new modality promoting autonomous, creative, critical students. For this purpose, teachers need to assume a new role, accompanying them in this process. Consequently, at the Faculty of Technology and Applied Sciences, the flipped classroom methodology was applied, allowing students to use- outside the classroom- various interactive tools created by the teacher and to apply classroom time to perform more complex activities, with exercises related to real life. This work describes a flipped classroom experience carried out in C language programming, in the subject "Computer Science" of the Electronic Engineering career of the National University of Catamarca (UNCa). The experience was carried out during the second term, 2017 year, with all the students enrolled in the subject. It was completed in the second half of the semester, using as a virtual campus the Moodle platform adopted by the Faculty. Results obtained on the applied methodology as well as the different tools used and the level of satisfaction on the part of the students are shown in this paper. Results derive from an online survey conducted at the end of the academic year.Experiencias docentes.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Herramientas TIC para la enseñanza de programación, empleando aula invertida

La incorporación de las TIC (Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación) en el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje y la necesidad de un cambio de rol del docente, conducen a la transformación de la metodología actual a una nueva modalidad donde el alumno sea autónomo de su aprendizaje, creativo, crítico y para ello se requiere que el docente asumiendo un nuevo rol, lo acompañe en este proceso. Por este motivo se llevó a cabo la implementación de la clase invertida, que permitió al alumno emplear diversas herramientas interactivas creadas por el docente fuera del horario de clase y emplear ese tiempo presencial para realizar actividades más complejas, con ejercicios relacionados a la vida real. Este trabajo describe una experiencia de clase invertida realizada en programación en lenguaje C, en la materia “Informática” de la carrera Ingeniería Electrónica de la Universidad Nacional de Catamarca, realizada durante el ciclo lectivo 2017 segundo cuatrimestre, con la totalidad de alumnos inscriptos en la materia. Se concretó la experiencia en la segunda mitad del cuatrimestre, empleando como campus virtual la plataforma Moodle adoptada por la facultad de Tecnología y Ciencias Aplicadas de la Universidad Nacional de Catamarca (UNCa). Se presentan resultados obtenidos sobre la metodología como así también de las diferentes herramientas empleadas y el nivel de satisfacción por parte de los alumnos. Los resultados se desprenden de una encuesta en línea realizada al finalizar el ciclo lectivo en curso.ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) implementation in the teachinglearning process and the need for changing the teacher’s role, lead to a transformation of the current teaching methodology to a new modality promoting autonomous, creative, critical students. For this purpose, teachers need to assume a new role, accompanying them in this process. Consequently, at the Faculty of Technology and Applied Sciences, the flipped classroom methodology was applied, allowing students to use- outside the classroom- various interactive tools created by the teacher and to apply classroom time to perform more complex activities, with exercises related to real life. This work describes a flipped classroom experience carried out in C language programming, in the subject "Computer Science" of the Electronic Engineering career of the National University of Catamarca (UNCa). The experience was carried out during the second term, 2017 year, with all the students enrolled in the subject. It was completed in the second half of the semester, using as a virtual campus the Moodle platform adopted by the Faculty. Results obtained on the applied methodology as well as the different tools used and the level of satisfaction on the part of the students are shown in this paper. Results derive from an online survey conducted at the end of the academic year.Experiencias docentes.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI