Analysis of assessment tools of Engineering degrees

This work presents an analysis of the assessment tools used by professors at the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya to assess the generic competencies introduced in the Bachelor’s Degrees in Engineering. In order to conduct this study, a survey was designed and administered anonymously to a sample of the professors most receptive to educational innovation at their own university. All total, 80 professors responded to this survey, of whom 26% turned out to be members of the university’s own evaluation innovation group (https://www.upc.edu/rima/grups/grapa), GRAPA. This percentage represents 47% of the total GRAPA membership, meaning that nearly half of the professors most concerned about evaluation at the university chose to participate. The analysis of the variables carried out using the statistical program SPSS v19 shows that for practically 49% of those surveyed, rubrics are the tools most commonly used to assess generic competencies integrated in more specific ones. Of those surveyed, 60% use them either frequently or always. The most frequently evaluated generic competencies were teamwork (28%), problem solving (26%), effective oral and written communication (24%) and autonomous learning (13%), all of which constitute commonly recognized competencies in the engineering profession. A two-dimensional crosstabs analysis with SPSS v19 shows a significant correlation (Asymp. Sig. 0.001) between the type of tool used and the competencies assessed. However, no significant correlation was found between the type of assessment tool used and the type of subject, type of evaluation (formative or summative), frequency of feedback given to the students or the degree of student satisfaction, and thus none of these variables can be considered to have an influence on the kind of assessment tool used. In addition, the results also indicate that there are no significant differences between the instructors belonging to GRAPA and the rest of those surveyed.Preprin

Analysis of evaluation instruments on Engineering Degrees

This work presents an analysis that has been done about the assessment tools used by the professors of the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya to assess the generic competencies introduced in the Bachelor’s Degrees in Engineering. In order to realize this study has been elaborated a survey which has been done anonymously to a sample of the most receptive professors with the educational innovation of the own university. In total there were 80 professors who answered the cited survey, of whom the 26% resulted to be members of the evaluation innovation group the own university, GRAPA. The variables analysis realized using the statistical program SPPS v19 shows that for practically the 49% of the surveyed the rubrics are the most utilized tools to assess the generic competencies integrated with the specific ones, and of those the 60% use them frequently or always. In addition, the results also indicate that there are not significant differences between the GRAPA’s professorship and the remain of the surveyed.Peer Reviewe

Effect of the thermal characteristics of dielectric fluids on the loading capacity of a power transformer

The use of biodegradable dielectric liquids in power transformers has several advantages, such as increased fire safety or their biodegradability in the event of a leak in the tank. However, they also have a higher viscosity that does not benefit their cooling function within these machines. Although there are many references that analyze the transformers hotspot temperature for dynamic loading, there are hardly any references that focus on the dynamic evaluation of the hotspot when the viscosity of the dielectric and cooling fluid changes, with respect to that of the oil of mineral origin. In this work, the algorithms proposed in the bibliography will be combined with the use of computational fluid dynamics software ANSYSFLUENT, which uses the finite volumes method to solve the equations that govern fluid flow. The software tool will be used to calculate the temperatures of a 100MVA transformer winding. Once these temperatures have been calculated, they can be entered into the hotspot temperature estimation algorithm when the machine's load regime is varied. This analysis will be repeated using dielectric liquids with different thermal characteristics. Transformer fleet managers may use the results of this study in order to adapt their procedures when the machines they manage do not have conventional mineral oil insidePart of the work was performed during secondments between University of Valle and the Universidad de Cantabria executed in the framework of the BIOTRAFO project “Raising knowledge and developing technology for the design and deployment of high performance power transformers immersed in biodegradable fluids”, H2020-MSCARISE-2018-823969, 2019–21. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 823969. Also, we acknowledge the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation by means of the National Research Project Asset management of biodegradable-fluid-based transformers (PID2019-107126RB-C22/AEI/10.13039/501100011033). The authors also want to thank the grant received from the Call for the Development of the 2020 Industrial Doctorate Program of the Universidad de Cantabria

La Evaluación del trabajo en equipo en asignaturas de proyectos en grados de ingeniería

En este trabajo se expone la estrategia e instrumentos de evaluación utilizados para integrar y evaluar la competencia genérica de trabajo en equipo en los proyec tos realizados en grupo en una asignatura obligatoria de p royectos ( Proyecto I ) de segundo curso de distintos grados de Ingeniería (Tecnologías Industriales, Química y de Materiales) cursados en la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Industrial de Barce lona (UPC - Barcelona Tech) . La metodología usada se ha basado en la de la asignatura de Proyectos de último curso de los estudios de Ingeniería a extinguir. Para facilitar el seguimiento tanto del funcionamiento del grupo como del contenido de los proyectos , se nombró una persona coordinadora del grupo con la que se realizaron entrevistas después de las 3 entregas del curso que permitieron dar un feedback a tiempo. A demás se implicó al alumnado en la evaluación de la competencia genérica trabajo en equipo, mediante evaluación entre iguales y auto - evaluación a través del campus virtual de la universidadPostprint (published version

Evidencias e instrumentos para la evaluación del aprendizaje por competencias

Postprint (published version

Wavelet analysis of overnight airflow to detect obstructive sleep apnea in children

Producción CientíficaThis study focused on the automatic analysis of the airflow signal (AF) to aid in the diagnosis of pediatric obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Thus, our aims were: (i) to characterize the overnight AF characteristics using discrete wavelet transform (DWT) approach, (ii) to evaluate its diagnostic utility, and (iii) to assess its complementarity with the 3% oxygen desaturation index (ODI3). In order to reach these goals, we analyzed 946 overnight pediatric AF recordings in three stages: (i) DWT-derived feature extraction, (ii) feature selection, and (iii) pattern recognition. AF recordings from OSA patients showed both lower detail coefficients and decreased activity associated with the normal breathing band. Wavelet analysis also revealed that OSA disturbed the frequency and energy distribution of the AF signal, increasing its irregularity. Moreover, the information obtained from the wavelet analysis was complementary to ODI3. In this regard, the combination of both wavelet information and ODI3 achieved high diagnostic accuracy using the common OSA-positive cutoffs: 77.97%, 81.91%, and 90.99% (AdaBoost.M2), and 81.96%, 82.14%, and 90.69% (Bayesian multi-layer perceptron) for 1, 5, and 10 apneic events/hour, respectively. Hence, these findings suggest that DWT properly characterizes OSA-related severity as embedded in nocturnal AF, and could simplify the diagnosis of pediatric OSA.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Agencia Estatal de Investigación y Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) - (Projects DPI2017-84280-R and RTC-2017-6516-1)Comisión Europea y Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) - (POCTEP 0702_MIGRAINEE_2_E)Instituto de Salud Carlos III y Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) - (CIBER-BBN)Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Agencia Estatal de Investigación y Fondo Social Europeo - (grant RYC2019- 028566-I)Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte - (grant FPU16/02938)Institutes of Health - (grants HL130984, HL140548, and AG061824

Una propuesta de evaluación de competencias genéricas en grados de Ingeniería

In genetic association studies, tests for Hardy-Weinberg proportions are often employed as a quality control checking procedure. Missing genotypes are typically discarded prior to testing. In this paper we show that inference for Hardy-Weinberg proportions can be biased when missing values are discarded. We propose to use multiple imputation of missing values in order to improve inference for Hardy-Weinberg proportions. For imputation we employ a multinomial logit model that uses information from allele intensities and/or neighbouring markers. Analysis of an empirical data set of single nucleotide polymorphisms possibly related to colon cancer reveals that missing genotypes are not missing completely at random. Deviation from Hardy-Weinberg proportions is mostly due to a lack of heterozygotes. Inbreeding coefficients estimated by multiple imputation of the missings are typically lowered with respect to inbreeding coefficients estimated by discarding the missings. Accounting for missings by multiple imputation qualitatively changed the results of 10 to 17% of the statistical tests performed. Estimates of inbreeding coefficients obtained by multiple imputation showed high correlation with estimates obtained by single imputation using an external reference panel. Our conclusion is that imputation of missing data leads to improved statistical inference for Hardy-Weinberg proportions.Postprint (published version

Aplicaciones de las nuevas herramientas de visualización de modelos 3D y realidad virtual en Internet a la docencia de la conservación y restauración del patrimonio, el diseño, y las bellas artes

Depto. de Diseño e ImagenFac. de Bellas ArtesFALSEsubmitte

Los proyectos como buenos ejemplos de evaluación: GRAPA-RIMA-Universidad Politècnica de Catalunya

En la presente comunicación se muestran diversos ejemplos de buenas prácticas de evaluación, que consisten en la elaboración de proyectos o trabajos de curso por parte del alumnado de diferentes asignaturas de titulaciones de la Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC). Dentro de esta universidad el grupo de interés GRAPA-RIMA (GRup d’Avaluació de la Práctica acadèmica) ha elaborado unos criterios en forma de rúbrica, que permiten validar si una actividad de evaluación puede considerarse un buena práctica. Los diferentes ejemplos presentados son fruto de la experiencia consolidada de diversos componentes del grupo GRAPA y representan actividades que suponen una parte importante de las asignaturas en cuanto a dedicación e involucración para el alumnado. Estos proyectos o trabajo son un verdadero reto para el alumnado y para que este desafío suponga un aprendizaje auténtico, la retroalimentación y seguimiento por parte del profesorado es imprescindible durante todo el proceso, como detallaremos en los ejemplos.Postprint (published version