BRAIN COMPUTER INTERFACE - Application of an Adaptive Bi-stage Classifier based on RBF-HMM

Brain Computer Interface is an emerging technology that allows new output paths to communicate the users intentions without the use of normal output paths, such as muscles or nerves. In order to obtain their objective, BCI devices make use of classifiers which translate inputs from the users brain signals into commands for external devices. This paper describes an adaptive bi-stage classifier. The first stage is based on Radial Basis Function neural networks, which provides sequences of pre-assignations to the second stage, that it is based on three different Hidden Markov Models, each one trained with pre-assignation sequences from the cognitive activities between classifying. The segment of EEG signal is assigned to the HMMwith the highest probability of generating the pre-assignation sequence. The algorithm is tested with real samples of electroencephalografic signal, from five healthy volunteers using the cross-validation method. The results allow to conclude that it is possible to implement this algorithm in an on-line BCI device. The results also shown the huge dependency of the percentage of the correct classification from the user and the setup parameters of the classifier

Introduccion a OpenCL

Este curso ofrecerá una introducción a OpenCL en el contexto de C y sus aplicaciones científicas. OpenCL proporciona el acceso a estos nuevos recursos computacionales y una forma coherente de utilizarlos para resolver problemas numéricos actuales en paralelo y en muchos casos, en menor tiempo de ejecución que la versión serie.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Anàlisi de l'eficiència energètica del projecte del "Bisbat de Terrassa"

Segon Premi PAI CONSTRUCCIONS per al millor projecte fi de carrera d'arquitectura tècnica del curs 2009/10L’eficiència energètica en el món de la construcció ha passat de ser una consideració a un dels requisits mínims en qualsevol tipus d’edificació, per aquest motiu, en aquest projecte es pretén desenvolupar l’anàlisi de l’eficiència energètica del projecte del Bisbat de Terrassa. La primera part del projecte ubica al lector a l’enunciat de treball. D’una banda es realitza una descripció constructiva per tal d’entendre l’edifici objecte d’estudi, dividint l’edificació global en diferents sistemes constructius, i per altra banda s’acota l’estudi en funció de la normativa vigent sobre l’objecte de l’anàlisi, repassant des de l’àmbit més general al particular. La segona part del projecte desenvolupa el propi anàlisi. S’inicia exposant les diferents característiques de la metodologia utilitzada, en aquest cas des de dos punts de vista d’estudi, per tal d’entendre la filosofia que s’ha seguit durant tot el procediment i per acabar exposant els resultats obtinguts amb l’explicació pertinent per a la seva comprenssió. Finalment es realitza una valoració dels diferents resultats i es desenvolupen les conclusions pertinents que engloben els aspectes més generals del projecte, en aquest cas la proposta de solucions alternatives a les inicials del projecte. A part de la memòria principal del treball també es poden trobar diferents annexos que fan referència al càlcul dels valors tèrmics dels tancaments, galeries fotogràfiques amb el seguiment del projecte i estudis per a la realització dels certificats d’eficiència energètica dels projectes.Award-winnin

Perceived quality in urgent transport sector

This research has focused on the customer evaluation of perceived quality in the urgent transport service in Spain. Using different statistical procedures, such as ordinal regression, between-groups comparison or multilevel modeling, this study shows how the perceived service quality of the public company «Correos» is lower than several of the main competitors: Seur, MRW and Nacex. Despite the investment achieved by this public institution in order to improve service quality, these efforts have not been reflected in the customer evaluation, at least to the same extent as competitors. Several recommendations for further research are discussed in the final part of the study.Perceived quality, urgent transport service, Correos

Brain Computer Interface. Comparison of Neural Networks Classifiers.

Brain Computer Interface is an emerging technology that allows new output paths to communicate the user’s intentions without use of normal output ways, such as muscles or nerves (Wolpaw, J. R.; et al., 2002).In order to obtain its objective BCI devices shall make use of classifier which translate the inputs provided by user’s brain signal to commands for external devices. The primary uses of this technology will benefit persons with some kind blocking disease as for example: ALS, brainstem stroke, severe cerebral palsy (Donchin et al., 2000).This report describes three different classifiers based on three different types of neural networks: Radial Basis Functions RBF, Probabilistic Neural Networks PNN, and Multi-Layer Perceptions MLP. The report compares the results produced by them in order to obtain conclusions to apply to an on-line BCI device; it also describes the experimental procedure followed in the experiments. As result of the tests carried out on five healthy volunteers an estimation of the success rate for each type of classifier, the type and architecture of the classifier, and filtering windows are established

Feedback effect analysis by comparison of discrimination capability of On-line and Off-line experimental procedures based on LDA

This paper analyses the user’s feedback influence in the mental task discrimination capability through the comparison of results obtained from Off-line and On-line Brain Computer Interface experimental procedures. Experiments performed under these two paradigms were carried out by five male volunteers. In order to develop a wearable BCI device only two electrodes in C3 and C4 zones have been used for electroencephalographic signal acquisition. These procedures apply seven different types of preprocessing windows and Linear Discrimination Analysis technique to reduce the dimension of the feature space before the quantification of the discrimination capability between the proposed mental activities. The discrimination capability is quantified through statistical analysis, based on bilateral contrast test, between the population of the LDA transformed feature vectors

An alternative approach to teaching English

Hoy en día, la enseñanza del inglés, está basada en un enfoque comunicativo. Como recoge la Ley Orgánica 8/2013 del 9 de diciembre para la Mejora de la Calidad Educativa (LOMCE) que modifica en su artículo único la Ley Orgánica 2/2006 de Educación (LOE), los alumnos y alumnas deben adquirir una competencia comunicativa básica en al menos una lengua extranjera. Esta competencia comunicativa implica el uso apropiado de la lengua en cualquier situación comunicativa. Para ello, basándonos en dicho enfoque, a lo largo del artículo se proponen diversas técnicas derivadas de la práctica docente, algunas de ellas un tanto controvertidas.Nowadays, English teaching is based on a Communicative Approache. As it is established in The Organic Law 8/2013 of December 9th for the Improvement of the Quality of Education which modifies in its only article the Organic Law 2/2006 of Education, students must acquire a basic communicative competence in at least one foreign language. This communicative competence implies the apprpriate use of language in any communicative situation. To do so, bearing in mind this approache, throughout this article diverse controversial techniques are proposed, all of them coming from the teaching practice

Time-motion analysis in professional championships of Valencian handball

Valencian handball is a sport with long tradition in the eastern coast of Spain. Among different variants of the game, this study has been focused in the professional version, also known as escala i corda. The aim was to determine the time distribution of periods of active play and rest time during matches. The variables studied were the total duration of the matches, games and game actions, differentiating real or active playing time from passive or rest time. We also quantified the number of games and the number of motor actions per match and per game in top professional competitions (Professional Escala i Corda Leagues and Cups, 2008-2011). Duration of an escala i corda match was between 57 min 43 s and 1 h 53 min 15 s, while the duration of active time was between 25 min 5 s and 50 min 46 s. The number of games per match varied between 11 and 17, and these had a mean duration of 4 min 35 s of active playing time. There are significant differences (p<0.05) in the duration of games, specifically between the three first periods (1-3, 4-6 and 7-9). Meanwhile, the mean time spent on the completion of each rally was 17.61 s ± 1.78 s. An improved understanding of players' absolute and actual game time can provide valuable information for planning specific escala i corda training exercises with respect to the duration and number of rallies

Asimetría fluctuante como un indicador de estrés ambiental en pequeños mamíferos

La estabilidad del desarrollo de un organismo se refleja en la capacidad que posee de producir una forma “ideal” bajo un conjunto particular de condiciones. Las estructuras bilaterales en organismos con simetría bilateral ofrecen una simetría precisa sobre la cual se pueden comparar desviaciones. La herramienta más utilizada para estimar la estabilidad del desarrollo es la asimetría fluctuante, la cual considera las pequeñas desviaciones aleatorias que ocurren entre los lados derecho e izquierdo de rasgos bilaterales, y es la única asimetría adecuada como indicador de estrés ambiental/genético. Resumimos cuatro décadas de estudios en donde la asimetría fluctuante fue utilizada para evaluar el efecto de estrés ambiental sobre pequeños mamíferos. Este grupo de especies ha sido ampliamente utilizado en estudios ecológicos para inferir perturbaciones ambientales debido a sus variadas características. Se seleccionaron 27 artículos compilados con Google Académico, utilizando “asimetría fluctuante” y “pequeños mamíferos” como palabras claves, escritas en inglés y con objetivos ecológicos. Centramos nuestro análisis en los enfoques utilizados para evaluar la asimetría fluctuante (medidas lineales o morfometría geométrica), el factor de estrés (natural o antropogénico), la región donde se desarrolló el estudio, el número de rasgos utilizado en los estudios y las fuentes de datos (muestras de pellets de lechuza, colecciones científicas y capturas directa de animales). La revisión muestra la importancia de incluir la asimetría fluctuante en estudios ecológicos como un indicador biológico confiable, económico y rápido del efecto del estrés ambiental sobre los mamíferos.The developmental stability of an organism is reflected in its ability to produce an ‘ideal’ form under a particular set of conditions. Bilateral structures in bilaterally symmetrical organisms offer a precise symmetry against which departures may be compared. The tool mostly used to estimate the development stability is fluctuating asymmetry, which considers small random deviations that occur between the left and right sides of a bilateral trait. Fluctuating asymmetry is considered as the only form of asymmetry that can serve as a useful indicator of environmental/genetic stress. We summarized four decades of studies where fluctuating asymmetry was used to assess the effects of environmental stress in small mammals. This group of species has been widely used in ecological studies to infer environmental disturbances because of its wide range of characteristics. We selected 27 articles that were compiled with Google Scholar (Mountain View, CA) using “fluctuating asymmetry” and “small mammals” as key words, written in English and with ecological objectives. We focused our analyses on the approaches used to evaluate fluctuating asymmetry (linear measurements or geometric morphometrics), the stress factor (natural or anthropogenic), the region where the study was developed, the number of traits used in the studies and the data sources, including measures obtained from samples of barn owl pellets, scientific collections and captured animals. The review shows the importance of including fluctuating asymmetry in ecological studies as a reliable, cheap and fast biological indicator of the effect of environmental stress on mammals.Fil: Coda, José Antonio. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Ciencias Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Martínez, Juan José. Universidad Nacional de Jujuy. Instituto de Ecorregiones Andinas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Salta. Instituto de Ecorregiones Andinas; ArgentinaFil: Steinmann, Andrea Rosa. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Ciencias Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Priotto, Jose Waldemar. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Ciencias Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Gomez, Maria Daniela. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Ciencias Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Analysing customer requirements and satisfaction in the furniture industry according .

The need to identify customer requirements and to satisfy them has become the main objective of companies. To manage that activity, that it is commonly associated to the marketing department, is the aim of every quality system, and therefore is a task that comprises the remaining departments of the organization. Through a case study, this paper seeks to identify which are the usual marketing practices in the furniture industry, and to outline an appropriate performance framework in agreement with the procedures settled down in the ISO 9000:2000 standards.Consumer needs; consumer satisfaction; ISO 9000:2000 certification