VCD helps others in molecular aggregates

Molecular self-assembly is the driving force of a great number of physical, chemical and biological processes in Nature.1 The properties of the molecular aggregates are markedly dependent on the intermolecular forces which hold together the building blocks, but also on the chemical and structural features of these building blocks. The transference of properties from the individual molecules to the bulk aggregate can be summarized in three main behaviours: disappearance (dipole moment), direct sum (weight) and enhancement (resilience). A nice example of the last group is the optical activity. The presence of a chiral seed in the molecules modulates their folding by favouring one among the available macrostructures. As a consequence, new forms of supramolecular chirality are triggered, such as helical, spiral or chiral sheets, which usually give rise to a noticeable increasing of the chiral signal of the aggregates. Vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) is the chiral version of infrared spectroscopy. It combines the intramolecular view provided by the molecular vibrations with the selective capability of a chiral analysis. It is also a suitable technique to observe the aggregation-induced signal enhancement in any type of condensed phase (solid, liquid, gel, etc). Here we present a series of studies on supramolecular systems, Figure 1, in which VCD helps and improves the analysis obtained by other techniques of chiral analysis as electron microscopy (SEM, AFM), electronic circular dichroism (ECD), Raman optical activity (ROA) or circularly polarized luminescence (CPL). These studies are aimed to obtain structural information of the macromolecular scaffolding useful to control the features and applications of the aggregates.Universidad de Málaga, Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

TAIP: an anytime algorithm for allocating student teams to internship programs

In scenarios that require teamwork, we usually have at hand a variety of specific tasks, for which we need to form a team in order to carry out each one. Here we target the problem of matching teams with tasks within the context of education, and specifically in the context of forming teams of students and allocating them to internship programs. First we provide a formalization of the Team Allocation for Internship Programs Problem, and show the computational hardness of solving it optimally. Thereafter, we propose TAIP, a heuristic algorithm that generates an initial team allocation which later on attempts to improve in an iterative process. Moreover, we conduct a systematic evaluation to show that TAIP reaches optimality, and outperforms CPLEX in terms of time.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Spreadsheet as a didactic tool to teach and learn financial math

In this document we propose a methodology to teach financial mathematics, using a spreadsheet as a didactic tool. We describe the traditional education process in a specific topic of mathematics, “debt restructuring and modeling with equivalent-equation” from the theoretical explanation to design a financial simulator programmed in a spreadsheet. After this, the result will be verified and validated by the designed software.TIC, Financial mathematics, teaching-learning process, financial tools.

Superintendents and Professional Development: Voices from the Field

The primary task of the educational leader is to assure high quality learning environments for all students. Research (Gordon, 2004; Sparks, 2007) supports the proposition that effective professional development contributes to instructional improvement by building educator capacity. Much of the research on professional development focuses in principal leadership in improving instruction (Blase & Blase, 2004). But district level administrators, especially the superintendent of schools, also have a role to play in school improvement. Standards for the preparation of school leaders specify competencies for superintendents that include the design and implementation of professional development programs based on sound research, best practices, district-and school-level data, and other contextual information (National Policy Board, 2002). The National Staff Development Council\u27s Standards (2001) also describe a comprehensive set of activities to improve student learning that apply to both campus and district level personnel. But while the research on the instructional leadership role of principals is extensive, comparatively little is said about how superintendents meet their own responsibilities in this area (Dufour, 2000; Hirsch, 2009; Firestone, Manquin, & Martinez, 2005)

An Intelligent Traction Control for Motorcycles

The appearance of anti-lock braking systems (ABS) and traction control systems (TCS) have been some of the most major developments in vehicle safety. These systems have been evolving since their origin, always keeping the same objective, by using increasingly sophisticated algorithms and complex brake and torque control architectures. The aim of this work is to develop and implement a new control model of a traction control system to be installed on a motorcycle, regulating the slip in traction and improving dynamic performance of two-wheeled vehicles. This paper presents a novel traction control algorithm based on the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Fuzzy Logic. An ANN is used to estimate the optimal slip of the surface the vehicle is moving on. A fuzzy logic control block, which makes use of the optimal slip provided by the ANN, is developed to control the throttle position. Two control blocks have been tuned. The first control block has been tuned according to the experience of an expert operator. The second one has been optimized using Evolutionary Computation (EC). Simulation shows that the use of EC can improve the fuzzy logic based control algorithm, obtaining better results than those produced with the control tuned only by experience.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech