A bayesian approach for predicting with polynomial regresión of unknown degree.

This article presents a comparison of four methods to compute the posterior probabilities of the possible orders in polynomial regression models. These posterior probabilities are used for forecasting by using Bayesian model averaging. It is shown that Bayesian model averaging provides a closer relationship between the theoretical coverage of the high density predictive interval (HDPI) and the observed coverage than those corresponding to selecting the best model. The performance of the different procedures are illustrated with simulations and some known engineering data

Experimental characterization and implementation of an integrated autoregressive model to predict the thermal performance of vegetal façades

Experimental characterization and implementation of an integrated autoregressive model to predict the thermal performance of vegetal façade

Solar UV network in Antarctica

Póster elaborado para la 25th General Assembly of the European Geophysical Society celebrada en Niza, Francia del 25 al 29 de abril de 200

Fostering English-taught higher education programs in a Spanish university: the "TechEnglish" innovative project

In recent years, coinciding with adjustments to the Bologna process, many European universities have attempted to improve their international profile by increasing course offerings in English. According to the Institute of International Education (IIE), Spain has notably increased its English-taught higher education programs, ranking fifth in the list of European countries by number of English-taught Master's programs in 2013. This article presents the goals and preliminary results of an on-going innovative education project (TechEnglish) that aims to promote course offerings in English at the Technical University of Madrid (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, UPM). The UPM is the oldest and largest of all Technical Universities in Spain. It offers graduate and postgraduate programs that cover all the engineering disciplines as well as architecture. Currently, the UPM has no specific bilingual/multilingual program to promote teaching in English, although there is an Educational Model Whitepaper (with a focus on undergraduate degrees) that promotes the development of activities like an International Semester or a unique shared curriculum. The TechEnglish project is an attempt to foster courses taught in English at 7 UPM Technical Schools, including students and 80 faculty members. Four tasks were identified: (1) to design a university wide framework to increase course offerings, (2) to identify administrative difficulties, (3) to increase visibility of courses offered, and (4) to disseminate the results of the project. First, to design a program we analyzed existing programs at other Spanish universities, and other projects and efforts already under way at the UPM. A total of 13 plans were analyzed and classified according to their relation with students (learning), professors (teaching), administration, course offerings, other actors/institutions within the university (e.g., language departments), funds and projects, dissemination activities, mobility plans and quality control. Second, to begin to identify administrative and organizational difficulties in the implementation of teaching in English, we first estimated the current and potential course offerings at the undergraduate level at the UPM using a survey (student, teacher and administrative demand, level of English and willingness to work in English). Third, to make the course offerings more attractive for both Spanish and international students we examined the way the most prestigious universities in Spain and in Europe try to improve the visibility of their academic offerings in English. Finally, to disseminate the results of the project we created a web page and a workspace on the Moodle education platform and prepared conferences and workshops within the UPM. Preliminary results show that increasing course offerings in English is an important step to promote the internationalization of the University. The main difficulties identified at the UPM were related to how to acknowledge/certify the departments, teachers or students involved in English courses, how students should register for the courses, how departments should split and schedule the courses (Spanish and English), and the lack of qualified personnel. A concerted effort could be made to increase the visibility of English-taught programs offered on-line

An experimental method to quantitatively anallyse the effect of termal insulation thickness on the summer preformance of a vertical green wall

La investigación ha demostrado que las paredes vegetales pueden ser una estrategia muy efectiva para enfriar los interiores en verano y aislarlos en invierno, esto implica disminuir el consumo energético tanto en el calentamiento como en la refrigeración de los edificios y la mejora de las condiciones térmicas en las zonas exteriores. El objetivo del estudio es entender la importancia del espesor del aislamiento en las fachadas vegetales. Para ello se ha utilizado la metodología de optimización paramétrica GFO, optimización de fachadas vegetales. La metodología GFO se ha desarrollado para encontrar todas las variables desconocidas que necesitan las herramientas de simulación térmica en el estudio del comportamiento de las fachadas vegetales. Se ha validado el modelo con la comparación de las simulaciones con los datos experimentales