The demand of business services in Spain

The growth in the outsourcing of services has become one of the most relevant features of the changes in manufacturing firms¿ behaviour. This paper provides empirical evidence about the extent and evolution of services outsourcing by Spanish manufacturing firms in 1990-1998. A general increase in outsourcing of services has been detected among firms in this period, although with strong differences across sectors and kind of services. Additionally, this paper studies the decision to outsource, devoting particular attention to the relationship between outsourcing and productivity. The results show the influence of variables such as firm size, ownership and location, among others

An instrumental puzzle: the modular integration of AOLI

The Adaptive Optics Lucky Imager, AOLI, is an instrument developed to deliver the highest spatial resolution ever obtained in the visible, 20 mas, from ground-based telescopes. In AOLI a new philosophy of instrumental prototyping has been applied, based on the modularization of the subsystems. This modular concept offers maximum flexibility regarding the instrument, telescope or the addition of future developments.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, Proc. SPIE 9908, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VI, 99082Z (August 9, 2016

Measures to evaluate quality of care in renal cancer: results of a Delphi study in Spain.

Purpose: To review current measures for renal cancer care and develop a comprehensive and updated list of measures for their practical use. Methods: The study was developed by Fundación ECO, a Spanish foundation aiming to improve oncology quality of care. A systematic literature review was carried out to identify measures and knowledge gaps. A scientific committee composed of 9 experts reviewed the literature findings and added measures. A preliminary list of 42 measures was evaluated with the Delphi method to gather feedback from 47 medical oncology experts in Spain. Experts scored the appropriateness of the measures and ranked their priority in 2 consecutive online surveys. The scientific committee reviewed the Delphi results and developed the measures. A technical group from Universidad Francisco de Vitoria conducted and oversaw the Delphi method. Results: The Delphi method led to consensus on all 42 measures. The scientific committee used a prioritisation matrix to select 25 of these measures for evaluating quality of care in renal cancer. These measures regarded structure, process, and outcome and covered general management, diagnosis, treatment, follow-up, and evaluation of health outcomes. Easy-to-use index cards were developed for all 25 measures, including their definition, formula, acceptable level of attainment, and rationale. Conclusions: This manuscript aims to provide healthcare professionals with expert- and evidence-based measures that are useful for evaluating quality of care in renal cancer and cover all aspects and stages.pre-print451 K

Incorporación de información sintáctico-semántica en la traducción de voz a lengua de signos

Este artículo presenta un conjunto de experimentos para evaluar la mejora obtenida cuando se incorpora información sintáctico-semántica en la traducción estadística de voz a lengua de signos. La traducción se realiza utilizando dos alternativas tecnológicas: la primera basada en modelos de subsecuencias de palabras y la segunda basada en traductores de estados finitos (“FST”). En cuanto a la evaluación de dichos resultados, se utilizan varias métricas, como WER (tasa de error de palabras), BLEU y NIST. Las pruebas realizadas incluyen experimentos con las frases de referencia en castellano y Lengua de Signos y con frases obtenidas del reconocedor de voz. Para evaluar la mejora obtenida se muestran los resultados con y sin información sintáctico-semántica. Los mejores resultados se obtuvieron con la solución de traductores de estados finitos con unas tasas de error de 26,06% para las frases de referencia y de 33,01% para las salidas del reconocedor cuando se incorpora información sintáctico-semántica

Aplicación de métodos estadísticos para la traducción de voz a Lengua de Signos

Este artículo presenta un conjunto de experimentos para la realización de un sistema de traducción estadística de voz a lengua de signos para personas sordas. El sistema contiene un primer módulo de reconocimiento de voz, un segundo módulo de traducción estadística de palabras en castellano a signos en Lengua de Signos Española, y un tercer módulo que realiza el signado de los signos mediante un agente animado. La traducción se hace utilizando dos alternativas tecnológicas: la primera basada en modelos de subsecuencias de palabras y la segunda basada en transductores de estados finitos. De todos los experimentos, se obtienen los mejores resultados con el modelo que realiza la traducción mediante transductores de estados finitos con unas tasas de error de 26,06% para las frases de referencia, de 33,42% para la salida del reconocedor

Sistema de Traducción Estadística de Voz a Lengua de Signos para Personas Sordas

Este artículo presenta un conjunto de experimentos para la realización de un sistema de traducción estadística de voz a lengua de signos para personas sordas. Éste contiene un módulo de reconocimiento de voz, uno de traducción estadística de palabras en castellano a signos en Lengua de Signos Española, y un tercer módulo que representa los signos mediante un avatar. La traducción se hace mediante dos alternativas tecnológicas: la primera basada en modelos de subsecuencias de palabras y la segunda basada en transductores de estados finitos. Para la evaluación se utilizan varias métricas, como WER (tasa de error de palabras), BLEU y NIST. Estas pruebas incluyen experimentos con las frases originales en castellano y Lengua de Signos y con frases extraídas del reconocedor de voz. Se evalúan también diferentes situaciones del reconocedor de voz a la hora de obtener el vocabulario y el modelo de lenguaje. Los mejores resultados se obtienen con la traducción mediante transductores de estados finitos dando unas tasas de error de 28,21% para las frases de referencia, y de 29,27% la salida del reconocedor

Adapting our sea ports to the challenges of climate change: development and validation of a Port Resilience Index

Climate change, which is largely caused by anthropogenic emissions of CO2, is one of the main challenges facing humankind today. In this context, and from the logistics point of view, ports are critical infrastructures not only because of their great vulnerability to such device phenomena, but also because of their key importance in global supply chains. We therefore need indications that will allow us to both determine a port’s resilience to the various challenges posed by climate change and take preventive actions to ensure the port can function correctly over time. This study presents a port resilience index (PRI), which, unlike existing indices, considers all stakeholders to determine the level of operational resilience of port processes. The index was validated in the external port of A Coruna ˜ (Galicia), chosen because of its especially adverse conditions and because in Spain, the effects of climate change are likely to be especially damaging. The results show that this port has an overall PRI of 52% and that its infrastructure and facilities and operational environment against the climate change challenge are especially sensitive. Analysis of the different factors of resilience allows port managers and policy makers to focus their actions on the factors that have the greatest impact of resilience. This should lead to better use of resources and more efficient contingency plans

Laboratory and telescope demonstration of the TP3-WFS for the adaptive optics segment of AOLI

AOLI (Adaptive Optics Lucky Imager) is a state-of-art instrument that combines adaptive optics (AO) and lucky imaging (LI) with the objective of obtaining diffraction limited images in visible wavelength at mid- and big-size ground-based telescopes. The key innovation of AOLI is the development and use of the new TP3-WFS (Two Pupil Plane PositionsWavefront Sensor). The TP3-WFS, working in visible band, represents an advance over classical wavefront sensors such as the Shack-Hartmann WFS (SH-WFS) because it can theoretically use fainter natural reference stars, which would ultimately provide better sky coverages to AO instruments using this newer sensor. This paper describes the software, algorithms and procedures that enabled AOLI to become the first astronomical instrument performing real-time adaptive optics corrections in a telescope with this new type of WFS, including the first control-related results at the William Herschel Telescope (WHT)This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy under the projects AYA2011-29024, ESP2014-56869-C2-2-P, ESP2015-69020-C2-2-R and DPI2015-66458-C2-2-R, by project 15345/PI/10 from the Fundación Séneca, by the Spanish Ministry of Education under the grant FPU12/05573, by project ST/K002368/1 from the Science and Technology Facilities Council and by ERDF funds from the European Commission. The results presented in this paper are based on observations made with the William Herschel Telescope operated on the island of La Palma by the Isaac Newton Group in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. Special thanks go to Lara Monteagudo and Marcos Pellejero for their timely contributions

Plasmonic Copper Sulfide Nanoparticles Enable Dark Contrast in Optical Coherence Tomography

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Marin, R., Lifante, J., Besteiro, L. V., Wang, Z., Govorov, A. O., Rivero, F., ... & Jaque, D. (2020). Plasmonic Copper Sulfide Nanoparticles Enable Dark Contrast in Optical Coherence Tomography. Advanced Healthcare Materials 2020 9.5 (2020): 1901627, which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adhm.201901627. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived VersionsOptical coherence tomography (OCT) is an imaging technique affording noninvasive optical biopsies. Like for other imaging techniques, the use of dedicated contrast agents helps better discerning biological features of interest during the clinical practice. Although bright OCT contrast agents have been developed, no dark counterpart has been proposed yet. Herein, plasmonic copper sulfide nanoparticles as the first OCT dark contrast agents working in the second optical transparency window are reported. These nanoparticles virtually possess no light scattering capabilities at the OCT working wavelength (≈1300 nm); thus, they exclusively absorb the probing light, which in turn results in dark contrast. The small size of the nanoparticles and the absence of apparent cytotoxicity support the amenability of this system to biomedical applications. Importantly, in the pursuit of systems apt to yield OCT dark contrast, a library of copper sulfide nanoparticles featuring plasmonic resonances spanning the three optical transparency windows is prepared, thus highlighting the versatility and potential of these systems in light-controlled biomedical applicationsThis project was partially funded by the European Commission through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant agreement No. 797945 “LANTERNS”. This work was partially supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España (MAT2016-75362-C3-1-R) and (MAT2017-83111R), by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI16/00812), by the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (B2017/BMD-3867RENIMCM), and co-financed by the European Structural and investment fund. Additional funding was provided by the European Commission Horizon 2020 project NanoTBTech. L.V.B was supported by the Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017M622992 and 2019T120820). Z.W. was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Project 2013CB933301) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project 51272038). A.G. was funded via the 1000-talent Award of Sichuan and by the Volkswagen Foundation. Prof. Jorge Rubio-Retama is gratefully acknowledged for granting access to the dynamic light scattering instrument and for the fruitful discussio

Enhanced controller for grid-connected modular multilevel converters in distorted utility grids

This paper is about the control of Modular multilevel converters, an innovative technology in the design of converters, which is beginning to be included in real installations. Papers about this topic include simulation models, circulating current reduction, voltage modulators, capacitor voltage balancing and control issues. The scheme for current source regulation used in this article includes all control loops, which are, from the outermost to innermost, DC bus voltage regulator, current regulator, voltage modulator, capacitor voltage balancing, and a PLL for the synchronization to the grid. Disposition-sinusoidal pulse width modulation is used as the voltage modulator, and an enhanced control strategy in the stationary reference frame for 3-phase MMCs is used for the inner current control loops. Very detailed simulations of the complete control system have been performed for both the enhanced control strategy in the stationary reference frame, and the well-known control in the synchronous reference frame, as well as some experiments using the hardware-in-the-loop simulation technique. The validation of these control strategies is made by a comparison of the capability of each one to compensate the harmonic distortions of the utility grid according to the grid code. The correct operation has been tested in the case of a strong/weak grid, unbalances and grid failures.This work has been partially supported by a grant from the Spanish Government as a part of 673 Project Ref. TEC2016-80136-P, entitled “Nuevas topologías para convertidores en MT para grandes 674 Instalaciones Fotovoltaicas” (A. B. Rey-Boué