Design of VR app applied to cognitive training

L’objectiu principal d’aquest projecte és el disseny d’una aplicació de realitat virtual per millorar el tractament dels pacients amb deteriorament cognitiu lleu, així com estudiar els possibles avantatges que aquesta tecnologia pot proporcionar en aquest camp. Es va escollir la realitat virtual perquè permet augmentar la sensació d’immersió pel que fa a les tecnologies actuals. Actualment la realitat virtual s’està utilitzant amb aquest tipus de tractament i està aconseguint gran resultats amb els pacients. A més, mitjançant l’ús d’aquesta tècnica d’immersió visual, s’espera que ajudi a millorar la capacitat dels pacients davant nous problemes, com pot ser la iniciació a la realitat virtual, una qüestió fonamental que ajuda a la millora dels pacients que es troben en les primeres etapes de la malaltia. L’aplicació consisteix en un entorn de supermercat virtual on el pacient pot realitzar diverses proves. En aquesta hi haurà diferents nivells amb diverses complexitats, sempre després d’haver realitzat un tutorial previ. L’aplicació s’ha realitzat en dues fases diferents: primer es va crear el guió, amb col·laboració amb la unitat d’Alzheimer de l’Hospital Clínic. Els nivells de l’aplicació es van definir aquí. El següent va ser la realització de l’aplicació amb col·laboració amb la companyia Vysion 360. Per a la seva utilització per la unitat d’Alzheimer de l’Hospital Clínic, l’aplicació tenia que complir diferents criteris. En primer lloc, els nivells de dificultat tenen que ser suficients per realitzar un tractament a llarg termini. En segon lloc, per crear una bona experiència de immersió, l’entorn creat té que ser el més realista possible. Finalment, s’ha creat una base de dades local per guardar la informació de totes les sessions, utilitzat posteriorment en l’anàlisi de evolució dels pacients. Amb aquesta aplicació, s’espera que els resultats en els pacients amb deteriorament cognitiu lleu milloren respecte a les tècniques anteriors. Especialment gràcies a la gran experiència d’immersió aconseguida amb la realitat virtual, la qual ajuda a la concentració dels pacients durant el tractament

Análisis de los estados contables: comparativa entre Real Betis Balompié y Sevilla Fútbol Club

El fútbol es el deporte rey, el más seguido y practicado en todo el mundo. Un deporte que mueve pasiones entre sus seguidores. Más allá de ser una simple afición, el fútbol se ha convertido en un acontecimiento social capaz de captar el interés de millones de personas alrededor del mundo y generando una gran influencia en la economía mundial. Sevilla FC y Real Betis Balompié son los dos equipos más representativos de Andalucía en lo que respecta al fútbol de máximo nivel. La rivalidad entre ellos, traspasa fronteras, en la lucha por ser el equipo más representativo de la ciudad. Más allá, del aspecto puramente deportivo, con el presente trabajo se pretende dar una visión de la situación económica de la industria del fútbol profesional en España y realizar una comparativa entre ambos equipos sobre la situación económico-financiera en la que se encuentran en los últimos cinco años.Football is the sport king, the most followed and practiced in the world. A sport that moves passions among its followers. Beyond being a mere hobby, football has become a social event capable of capturing theinter est of millions of people around the world and generating a great influence on the world economy. Sevilla F.C. and Real Betis Balompie are the two most representative teams in Andalusia when it comes to top-level football. The rivalry between them crosses borders, in the struggle to be the most representative team of the city. Beyond, the purely sporty aspect, with this work is intended to give an overview of the economic situation of the proeffional football industry in Spain and make a comparisonbetween the two teams on the economic financial situation they are in the last five years.Departamento de Economía Financiera y ContabilidadGrado en Administración y Dirección de Empresa

México: partida de ajedrez. Mario Pani

Se ensaya aquí cómo construye su mirada el arquitecto Mario Pani Darqui (México, D.F., 1911-1993), cuya visión es la del jugador de ajedrez: estratégica, cenital y transversal, profunda y extrañada, inci- siva y extensa, mimética y contrapuesta. Todo al mismo tiempo. Con base en esta reconstrucción de su forma de ver ―crucial para el entendimiento de la arquitectura y el urbanismo de México en el si- glo XX― se plantea una acción conceptual en el entorno del río Manzanares en Madrid. Un paisaje espiritual, silente, que a través de tres situaciones radicales obliga a quien lo contempla a un ejercicio instantáneo de meditación. Se ejecuta y se cartografía, dando como resultado una aproximación sen- sible sobre cómo intervenir en el paisaje y su registro

Leflunomide derivative FK778 inhibits production of antibodies in an experimental model of alloreactive T-B cell interaction

El pdf es el artículo en full text.-- et al.[Objectives]: The contribution of humoral immune response in allograft and xenograft rejection has been clearly demonstrated in recent years. For this reason, inhibition of alloantibody production has become essential in managing transplanted patients. Here, we assessed the effects of the leflunomide derivative FK778 (FK778) in the control of antibody production resulting from semiallogeneic cognate T-B-cell interactions. [Materials and Methods]: BALB/c mice were tolerized at birth with semiallogeneic spleen cells from (BALB/c × C57BL/6) F1 mice, with or without overexpression of human bcl-2 transgene in B cells. These tolerized mice were treated with different dosages of FK778, either from birth, or from the third week of age, when autoantibody production was detected. The production of autoantibodies, used as markers of semiallogeneic cognate T-B-cell interactions, was evaluated at different time points during drug administration or after the interruption of treatment. [Results]: FK778 treatment started at birth inhibited the production of semiallogeneic-driven antibodies in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, FK778 also reduced the levels of preformed circulating autoantibodies in adult mice, although the dosage required was 4 times higher than that used in neonates. However, the levels of IgG antibodies in these tolerized mice increased after FK778 withdrawal, indicating that FK778 failed to induce tolerance to semiallogeneic host CD4+ Th2 and/or donor B cells. [Conclusions]: Our results demonstrate the efficacy of FK778 in the control of antibody production resulting from semiallogeneic cognate T-B-cell interactions. © Başkent University 2009. All Rights Reserved.This work was supported by REDINREN RD06/0016 and PI070683 grants from the “Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo” (Spain) to MA, by grant No. SAF2005-00811 from the “Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia,” and a grant from the “Fundación Ramón Areces” (Spain) to RM, by grants No. SAF2006-012520-C02-02 from the “Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia,” and grant No. API07/08 from the “Fundación Marqués de Valdecilla” (Spain) to JM, and MAR-B is the recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship from the “Instituto Reina Sofía de la Fundación Renal Iñigo Alvarez de Toledo,” Spain. IS is funded by the “Fundación Marqués de Valdecilla, API06/07” (Spain).Peer Reviewe

Decision-Theoretic Planning with Person Trajectory Prediction for Social Navigation

Robots navigating in a social way should reason about people intentions when acting. For instance, in applications like robot guidance or meeting with a person, the robot has to consider the goals of the people. Intentions are inherently nonobservable, and thus we propose Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) as a decision-making tool for these applications. One of the issues with POMDPs is that the prediction models are usually handcrafted. In this paper, we use machine learning techniques to build prediction models from observations. A novel technique is employed to discover points of interest (goals) in the environment, and a variant of Growing Hidden Markov Models (GHMMs) is used to learn the transition probabilities of the POMDP. The approach is applied to an autonomous telepresence robot

Solving Multi-Objective Hub Location Problems with Robustness

Hub location problems (HLP) are considered in many logistic, telecommunications, and computer problems, where the design of these networks are optimized based on some objective(s) related to the cost or service. In those cases, direct routing between any origin and destination is not viable due to economic or technological constraints. From the seminal work of O'Kelly~\cite{OKelly86}, a huge number of works have been published in the literature. Early contributions were focused on analogue facility location problems, considering some assumptions to simplify the network design. Recent works have studied more complex models by incorporating additional real-life features and relaxing some assumptions, although the input parameters are still assumed to be known in most of the HLPs considered in the literature. This assumption is unrealistic in practice, since there is a high uncertainty on relevant parameters of real problems, such as costs, demands, or even distances. Consequently, a decision maker usually prefer several solutions with a low uncertainty in their objectives functions instead of the optimum solution of an assumed deterministic objective function. In this work we use a three-objective Integer Linear Programming model of the p-hub location problem where the average transportation cost, its variance, and the processing time in the hubs are minimized. The number of variables is $O(n^4)$ where $n$ is the number of nodes of the graph. ILP solvers can only solve small instances of the problems and we propose in this work the use of a recent hybrid algorithm combining a heuristic and exact methods: Construct, Merge, Solve, and AdaptUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Anytime Algorithms for Multi-Objective Hub Location Problems

In many logistic, telecommunications and computer networks, direct routing of commodities between any origin and destination is not viable due to economic and technological constraints. Hub locations problems (HLPs) are considered in that cases, where the design of these networks are optimized based on some objective(s) related on the cost or service. A huge number of papers have been published since the seminal work of O’Kelly. Early works were focused on analogue facility location problems, considering some assumptions to simplify network design. Recent works have studied more complex models that relax some of these assumptions and incorporate additional real-life features. In most HLPs considered in the literature, the input parameters are assumed to be known and deterministic. However, in practice, this assumption is unrealistic since there is a high uncertainty on relevant parameters, such as costs, demands or even distances. As a result, a decision maker usually prefer several solutions with a low uncertainty in their objectives functions. In this work, anytime algorithms are proposed to solve the multi-objective hub location problems with uncertainty. The proposed algorithms can be stopped at any time, yielding a set of efficient solutions (belonging to the Pareto front) that are well spread in the objective space.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Using mobility information to perform a feasibility study and the evaluation of spatio-temporal energy demanded by an electric taxi fleet

Half of the global population already lives in urban areas, facing to the problem of air pollution mainly caused by the transportation system. The recently worsening of urban air quality has a direct impact on the human health. Replacing today’s internal combustion engine vehicles with electric ones in public fleets could provide a deep impact on the air quality in the cities. In this paper, real mobility information is used as decision support for the taxi fleet manager to promote the adoption of electric taxi cabs in the city of San Francisco, USA. Firstly, mobility characteristics and energy requirements of a single taxi are analyzed. Then, the results are generalized to all vehicles from the taxi fleet. An electrificability rate of the taxi fleet is generated, providing information about the number of current trips that could be performed by electric taxis without modifying the current driver mobility patterns. The analysis results reveal that 75.2% of the current taxis could be replaced by electric vehicles, considering a current standard battery capacity (24–30 kWh). This value can increase significantly (to 100%), taking into account the evolution of the price and capacity of the batteries installed in the last models of electric vehicles that are coming to the market. The economic analysis shows that the purchasing costs of an electric taxi are bigger than conventional one. However, fuel, maintenance and repair costs are much lower. Using the expected energy consumption information evaluated in this study, the total spatio-temporal demand of electric energy required to recharge the electric fleet is also calculated, allowing identifying optimal location of charging infrastructure based on realistic routing patterns. This information could also be used by the distribution system operator to identify possible reinforcement actions in the electric grid in order to promote introducing electric vehicles

A new multisensor software architecture for movement detection: Preliminary study with people with cerebral palsy

A five-layered software architecture translating movements into mouse clicks has been developed and tested on an Arduino platform with two different sensors: accelerometer and flex sensor. The archi-tecture comprises low-pass and derivative filters, an unsupervised classifier that adapts continuously to the strength of the user's movements and a finite state machine which sets up a timer to prevent in-voluntary movements from triggering false positives. Four people without disabilities and four people with cerebral palsy (CP) took part in the experi-ments. People without disabilities obtained an average of 100% and 99.3% in precision and true positive rate (TPR) respectively and there were no statistically significant differences among type of sensors and placement. In the same experiment, people with disabilities obtained 97.9% and 100% in precision and TPR respectively. However, these results worsened when subjects used the system to access a commu-nication board, 89.6% and 94.8% respectively. With their usual method of access-an adapted switch- they obtained a precision and TPR of 86.7% and 97.8% respectively. For 3-outof- 4 participants with disabilities our system detected the movement faster than the switch. For subjects with CP, the accelerometer was the easiest to use because it is more sensitive to gross motor motion than the flex sensor which requires more complex movements. A final survey showed that 3-out-of-4 participants with disabilities would prefer to use this new technology instead of their tra-ditional method of access