Propuesta de conservación del sitio Ramsar-Valsequillo a partir del estudio de la megafauna del pleistoceno

"Los estudios paleoambiéntales son fundamentales para entender los efectos que las variaciones climáticas han tenido sobre la biodiversidad y su entorno a través del tiempo. La reconstrucción del hábitat y ambientes del pasado puede obtenerse a través de indicadores cuantificables denominados proxies. Uno de estos es el análisis de la dieta de mamíferos, que puede ser inferida a través del análisis de isótopos estables, microdesgaste y mesodesgaste en dientes. El objetivo del presente trabajo es conocer la dieta, basados en la señal de mesodesgaste, e inferir el hábitat de tres especies de mamíferos ungulados herbívoros del pleistoceno tardío (Rancholabreano), presentes en el sitio Ramsar-Valsequillo Puebla: Equus mexicanus, E. conversidens (Perissodactyla, Equidae) y Mammuthus columbi (Proboscidae, elephantidae).

Creación y validación de la escala del funcionamiento mental para medir el riesgo suicida

Title: Creation and validation of the mental functioning scale to measure suicide risk. Introduction: Suicide is the act of deliberately taking one's own life; suicidal behavior is any action that could lead a person to die, and suicidal risk is the probability that someone will make an attempt to end their life. Sigmund Freud, with his psychoanalytic theory, allows us to think that there is an irreversible reality of suicide, psychodynamics, and the existence of a continuity between representations and completed self-destruction, which depends on individual mental health; During the stages of psychosexual development, acquisitions are promoted: reality testing, integration of the self and the object, and predominantly used defense mechanisms; the combination of these produces psychotic, borderline, and neurotic forms of mental functioning; the first two have high suicidal risk, the third low suicidal risk. Methodology: the objective was to create and validate a documentary measurement instrument of suicide risk based on the characteristics of mental functioning; the subjective suicide risk variable was measured through three logical dimensions: psychotic, borderline and neurotic mental functioning; We used the documentary instrument validation research design, which assessed its intrinsic properties in two phases; the first was exploratory and constructivist with the creation of the instrument; the second phase was descriptive, with the construct and reliability assessment; The instrument was applied to 35 individuals in three pilot tests, with a non-random selection, at the discretion of the researcher. Results and discussion: 105 individuals participated; 20% male and 80% female; the mean age was 34.5 with a standard deviation of 11.9; the mean filling time was 9.8 minutes, with a standard deviation of 4.5 minutes; the rejection rate was 0%; For the construction of the instrument, rational validity was used, building an initial instrument of 40 lickert scale items; for construct validity, variability was measured and the items were reduced to 30; we obtained variances between 0.593 and 2.482, considered high; we used Pearson's correlation and obtained a determinant of 7.83E-11, considered a high correlation between items; the Kaiser Meyer Olkin sample adequacy measure was 0.248, indicating that there is a correlation; and the Bartlett sphericity test had a significant p-value=0.000; which indicates that the sample meets the requirements to perform parametric tests such as confirmatory factor analysis; for this we used the varimax component rotation method with kaiser normalization because we only wanted to obtain three factors; for reliability we obtained a Cronbach's alpha of 0.7, which is still within the accepted limits of 0.7 to 0.9. Discussion: good variances were obtained, which indicates that the instrument has a good discriminative capacity; it has good correlations between items and between each item and the total, which indicates that there is adequate internal consistency of the instrument; the data demonstrated that they are adequate to carry out parametric procedures; confirmatory factor analysis gave us three factors; Cronbach's alpha is within accepted limits. Conclusions: the instrument is reliable and provides consistent measurements; it is useful to discriminate populations with high suicidal risk.Título: Creación y validación de la escala del funcionamiento mental para medir el riesgo suicida. Introducción: El suicidio es el acto de quitarse deliberadamente la propia vida; el comportamiento suicida es cualquier acción que pudiera llevar a una persona a morir, y el riesgo suicida es la probabilidad de que alguien realice un intento de acabar con su vida. Sigmund Freud, con su teoría psicoanalítica nos permite pensar que existe una realidad irreversible del suicidio, psicodinamia, y la existencia de una continuidad entre representaciones y autodestrucción cumplida, que depende de la salud mental individual; durante las etapas de desarrollo psicosexual se promueven las adquisiciones: prueba de realidad, integración del sí mismo y del objeto y mecanismos de defensa predominantemente usados; la combinación de estas produce las formas de funcionamiento mental psicótico, borderline y neurótico; las dos primeras tienen alto riesgo suicida, la tercera bajo riesgo suicida. Metodología: el objetivo fue crear y validar un instrumento de medición documental del riesgo suicida basado en las características del funcionamiento mental; la variable subjetiva riesgo suicida fue medida a través de tres dimensiones lógicas: Funcionamiento mental psicótico, borderline y neurótico; usamos el diseño de investigación validación de instrumentos documentales, que valoró las propiedad intrínsecas del mismo en dos fases; la primera fue exploratoria y constructivista con la creación del instrumento; la segunda fase fue descriptiva, con la valoración de constructo y de la fiabilidad; se aplicó el instrumento a 35 individuos en tres pruebas piloto, con una selección no aleatoria, a criterio del investigador. Resultados y discusión: participaron 105 individuos; 20% masculinos y 80% femeninos; la media de edad fue de 34.5 con una desviación estándar de 11.9; la media del tiempo de llenado fue de 9.8 minutos, con desviación estándar de 4.5 minutos; la tasa de rechazo fue 0%; para la construcción del instrumento se usó la validez racional, construyendo un instrumento inicial de 40 reactivos tipo escala lickert; para la validez de constructo se midió la variabilidad y se disminuyeron los reactivos a 30; obtuvimos varianzas entre 0.593 y 2.482, consideradas elevadas; usamos la correlación de Pearson y obtuvimos un determinante de 7.83E-11, considerado una alta correlación entre reactivos; la medida de adecuación muestral de Kaiser Meyer Olkin resultó de 0.248, indicando que sí existe correlación; y la prueba de esfericidad de Bartlett tuvo un p-valor=0.000 significativo; lo que nos indica que la muestra cumple con los requisitos para realizar pruebas paramétricas como el análisis factorial confirmatorio; para este usamos el método de rotación de componentes  varimax con normalización kaiser porque únicamente queríamos obtener tres factores; para la fiabilidad obtuvimos un índice de alfa de Cronbach de 0.7, que aún se encuentra dentro de los límites aceptados de 0.7 a 0.9. Discusión: se obtuvieron buenas varianzas, lo que nos indica que el instrumento tiene una buena capacidad discriminativa; tiene buenas correlaciones entre reactivos y entre cada reactivo y el total, que nos indica que existe adecuada consistencia interna del instrumento; los datos demostraron que son adecuados para realizar procedimientos paramétricos; el análisis factorial confirmatorio nos dio por resultado tres factores; el índice alfa de Cronbach se encuentre dentro los límites aceptados. Conclusiones: el instrumento es fiable y proporciona mediciones consistentes; es útil para discriminar poblaciones con riesgo suicida alto

Do Spanish parents prefer special schools for their children with autism?

The social and communication difficulties of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) pose a special challenge to educational inclusion. Previous research has suggested that, because of this, parents of children with ASD might be less favorable to educating their children in inclusive settings. In this study, 60 parents of children with ASD in the city of Seville (Spain) were interviewed about their perception of educational provision. Parents were from three different groups, according to the children’s educational placement: mainstream non-segregated settings (regular schools and sharing time with other children without disabilities), mainstream segregated settings (special classes in regular schools) and special schools. These contexts differ in teacher training, resources and contact with other children in ways that allow a comparison of the relative influence of these variables on parental perception. Overall parental satisfaction was high. However, parents in mainstream segregated settings were less satisfied than those in special schools. There were no differences between the satisfaction of parents with children in mainstream segregated and non-segregated settings. Results seem to indicate that it is resources and teacher training, rather than severity of the disorder, the classroom structure or fear of contact with other children without ASD, that determine positive parental perception

Dimensionality reduction in images for appearance-based camera localization

[Abstract] Appearance-based Localization (AL) focuses on estimating the pose of a camera from the information encoded in an image, treated holistically. However, the high-dimensionality of images makes this estimation intractable and some technique of dimensionality Reduction (DR) must be applied. The resulting reduced image representation, though, must keep underlying information about the structure of the scene to be able to infer the camera pose. This work explores the problem of DR in the context of AL, and evaluates four popular methods in two simple cases on a synthetic environment: two linear (PCA and MDS) and two non-linear, also known as Manifold Learning methods (LLE and Isomap). The evaluation is carried out in terms of their capability to generate lower-dimensional embeddings that maintain underlying information that is isometric to the camera poses.Junta de Andalucía; P20 0130

Sequential Monte Carlo localization in topometric appearance maps.

Representing the scene appearance by a global image descriptor (BoW, NetVLAD, etc.) is a widely adopted choice to address Visual Place Recognition (VPR). The main reasons are that appearance descriptors can be effectively provided with radiometric and perspective invariances as well as they can deal with large environments because of their compactness. However, addressing metric localization with such descriptors (a problem called Appearance-based Localization or AbL) achieves much poorer accuracy than those techniques exploiting the observation of 3D landmarks, which represent the standard for visual localization. In this paper, we propose ALLOM (Appearance-based Localization with Local Observation Models) which addresses AbL by leveraging the topological location of a robot within a map to achieve accurate metric estimations. This topology-assisted metric localization is implemented with a sequential Monte Carlo Bayesian filter that applies a specific observation model for each different place of the environment, thus taking advantage of the local correlation between the pose and the appearance descriptor within each region. ALLOM also benefits from the topological structure of the map to detect eventual robot loss-of-tracking and to effectively cope with its relocalization by applying VPR. Our proposal demonstrates superior metric localization capability compared to different state-of-the-art AbL methods under a wide range of situations.This work was supported by the Government of Spain in part under grant FPU17/04512, in part under the ARPEGGIO (PID2020-117057GB-I00) research project, and also by the Andalucian Regional Government under the Houndbot (PY20 01302) research project

Logarithmic cohomology of the complement of a plane curve

Let D, x be a plane curve germ. We prove that the complex Ω•(log D)x computes the cohomology of the complement of D, x only if D is quasihomogeneous. This is a partial converse to a theorem of F.J. Castro-Jiménez, D. Mond and L. Narváez-Macarro. Cohomology of the complement of a free divisor. Transactions of the A.M.S., 348 (1996), 3037– 3049, which asserts that this complex does compute the cohomology of the complement, whenever D is a locally weighted homogeneous free divisor (and so in particular when D is a quasihomogeneous plane curve germ). We also give an example of a free divisor in D ⊂ C3 which is not locally weighted homogeneous, but for which this (second) assertion continues to hold.Ministerio de Educación y CienciaEngineering and Physical Sciences Research Counci

A constant-time SLAM back-end in the continuum between global mapping and submapping: application to visual stereo SLAM

This work addresses the development and application of a novel approach, called sparser relative bundle adjustment (SRBA), which exploits the inherent flexibility of the relative bundle adjustment (RBA) framework to devise a continuum of strategies, ranging from RBA with linear graphs to classic bundle adjustment (BA) in global coordinates, where submapping with local maps emerges as a natural intermediate solution. This method leads to graphs that can be optimized in bounded time even at loop closures, regardless of the loop length. Furthermore, it is shown that the pattern in which relative coordinate variables are defined among keyframes has a significant impact on the graph optimization problem. By using the proposed scheme, optimization can be done more efficiently than in standard RBA, allowing the optimization of larger local maps for any given maximum computational cost. The main algorithms involved in the graph management, along with their complexity analyses, are presented to prove their bounded-time nature. One key advance of the present work is the demonstration that, under mild assumptions, the spanning trees for every single keyframe in the map can be incrementally built by a constant-time algorithm, even for arbitrary graph topologies. We validate our proposal within the scope of visual stereo simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) by developing a complete system that includes a front-end that seamlessly integrates several state-of-the-art computer vision techniques such as ORB features and bag-of-words, along with a decision scheme for keyframe insertion and a SRBA-based back-end that operates as graph optimizer. Finally, a set of experiments in both indoor and outdoor conditions is presented to test the capabilities of this approach. Open-source implementations of the SRBA back-end and the stereo front-end have been released online.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (DPI 2011-25483, DPI 2014-55826-R). Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional – FEDE

An Analytical Solution to the IMU Initialization Problem for Visual-Inertial Systems.

Política de acceso abierto tomada de: https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/37214The fusion of visual and inertial measurements is becoming more and more popular in the robotics community since both sources of information complement each other well. However, in order to perform this fusion, the biases of the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) as well as the direction of gravity must be initialized first. In case of a monocular camera, the metric scale is also needed. The most popular visual-inertial initialization approaches rely on accurate vision-only motion estimates to build a non-linear optimization problem that solves for these parameters in an iterative way. In this letter, we rely on the previous work in [1] and propose an analytical solution to estimate the accelerometer bias, the direction of gravity and the scale factor in a maximum-a-posteriori framework. This formulation results in a very efficient estimation approach and, due to the non-iterative nature of the solution, avoids the intrinsic issues of previous iterative solutions. We present an extensive validation of the proposed IMU initialization approach and a performance comparison against the state-of-the-art approaches described in [2] and [3] with real data from the publicly available EuRoC dataset. Our approach achieves better accuracy without requiring an initial guess for the scale factor and incorporates a prior for the accelerometer bias in order to avoid observability issues. In terms of computational efficiency, it is as fast as the first work and two times faster than the second. We also provide a C++ open source reference implementation.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (DPI2017-84827-R) con fondos FEDER

Social support from developmental contexts and adolescent substance use and well-being: a comparative study of Spain and Portugal

The aim of this study was to analyse the contribution of social support from family, friend and school (teacher and classmate) contexts in substance use (tobacco and alcohol use) and well-being (life satisfaction and health-related quality of life). Participants were 5,784 Portuguese and 22,610 Spanish adolescents aged 11 to 16 years, from the 2014 edition of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) study in Portugal and Spain. Results showed that for a higher life satisfaction, family ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .032), teacher ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .018) and classmate ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .031) support were important in Portugal, and family ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .056) and friend ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .015) support in Spain. Similarly, for a better health-related quality of life, all the social support variables were relevant in Portugal (family: p < .001, partial η 2 = .063; teacher: p < .001, partial η 2 = .032; classmate: p < .001, partial η 2 = .054; friend: p < .001, partial η 2 = .034) and in Spain (family: p < .001, partial η 2 = .054; teacher: p < .001, partial η 2 = .014; classmate: p < .001, partial η 2 = .018; friend: p < .001, partial η 2 = .040). In contrast, only family support ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .014) was relevant in Portugal for tobacco use. Therefore, social support was more relevant for adolescent well-being than for adolescent substance use, and the most relevant source of support was family support, in both Spain and Portugal

Obtaining Adaptation of Virtual Courses by Using a Collaborative Tool and Learning Design

In this work is described a collaborative tool Learning Activity Management System, LAMS (Macquarie University, Australia) which has been developed for designing, managing and delivering online collaborative learning activities. It provides teachers with a highly intuitive visual authoring environment for creating sequences of learning activities. These activities can include a range of individual tasks, small group work and whole class activities based on both content and collaboration. Then a methodology to apply this tool is described