La protección del débil jurídico como meta del Derecho Posmoderno: paralelismo entre el Derecho del Trabajo y el Derecho del Consumo

Nuestra investigación pretende determinar qué institutos jurídicos del Derecho del Trabajo, debidamente readecuados, pueden ser utilizados por el Derecho del Consumo para mejorar la protección del Consumidor. Para lograr este objetivo utilizamos un enfoque metodológico cuantitativo, utilizando como diseño el método descriptivo, bibliográfico. Se trata de una investigación pura, de carácter exploratorio, de corte transversal. Resultados parciales obtenidos: 1. El Derecho del Trabajo ha desarrollado profundamente una teoría general de sus principios. Establecerla en el Derecho del Consumo permitirá cumplir 3 (tres) funciones: a. Orientadora: del legislador al momento de legislar; b. Integradora: de las lagunas que el ordenamiento del consumidor presente; c. Interpretativa: de las dificultades de este tipo que presenten las normas de consumo; 2. Orden Público: En el Derecho del Trabajo esta institución establece un estándar mínimo de normas protectorias del trabajador, irrenunciables. La creación de un Orden Público del Consumo podría ayudar a que los consumidores cuenten con un mínimo de derechos inderogable; 3. El Derecho del Trabajo presenta una fuente normativa original: la convención colectiva de trabajo. Entendemos que esta figura, utilizada en el Derecho del Consumo, logrará colectivamente estándares mínimos de protección del consumidor; 4. Estamos analizando la posibilidad de limitar la capacidad de crédito otorgable a los consumidores conforme a sus ingresos declarados

Flexible Real-Time Linux a New Environment for Flexible Hard Real-Time Systems

[ES] La presente tesis propone un nuevo entorno general para la construcción de sistemas flexibles de tiempo real estricto, esto es, sistemas que necesitan de garantías de tiempo real estricto y de un comportamiento flexible. El entorno propuesto es capaz de integrar tareas con varios niveles de criticidad y diferentes paradigmas de planificación en el mismo sistema. Como resultado, el entorno permite proporcionar garantías de tiempo real estricto a las tareas críticas y además conseguir una planificación adaptativa e inteligente de las tareas menos críticas. El entorno se define en términos de un modelo de tareas, una arquitectura software y un conjunto de servicios. El modelo de tareas propone construir una aplicación flexible de tiempo real estricto como un conjunto de tareas, donde cada tarea se estructura en una secuencia de componentes obligatorios y opcionales. La arquitectura software propone separar la ejecución de las tareas en dos niveles de planificación interrelacionados, de manera que un nivel planifica los componentes obligatorios mediante una política de planificación de tiempo real estricto mientras que el otro nivel planifica los componentes opcionales mediante una política de planificación basada en la utilidad. El conjunto de servicios incluye, por una parte, un sistema de comunicación entre los componentes de las tareas (tanto obligatorios como opcionales) y, por otra, una serie de mecanismos para la detección y tratamiento de excepciones temporales producidas en ejecución. Por otra parte, la presente tesis muestra que el entorno teórico propuesto puede ser implementado realmente. En concreto, se presenta el diseño e implementación de un sistema de ejecución (es decir, un núcleo de sistema operativo) capaz de soportar las características de dicho entorno. Este sistema, denominado Flexible Real-Time Linux (FRTL), ha sido desarrollado a partir de un núcleo mínimo existente denominado Real-Time Linux (RT-Linux). Finalmente, esta tesis presenta una caracterización temporal completa del sistema FRTL y medidas reales de su sobrecarga. La caracterización temporal ha permitido el desarrollo de un test de garantía completo de todo el sistema (incluyendo la aplicación y el núcleo de FRTL), que puede ser utilizado para verificar las restricciones temporales de cualquier aplicación implementada sobre FRTL. Por su parte, las medidas de la sobrecarga de FRTL muestran que este núcleo ha sido diseñado e implementado de manera eficiente. En conjunto, se demuestra que el núcleo FRTL es a la vez predecible y eficiente, dos características que informan de su utilidad en la implementación real de aplicaciones flexibles de tiempo real estricto.[CA] Aquesta tesi proposa un nou entorn general per a la construcció de sistemes flexibles de temps real estricte, això és, sistemes que requereixen garanties de temps real estricte i un comportament flexible. L'entorn proposat és capaç d'integrar tasques amb diferentsnivells de criticitat i diferents paradigmes de planificació al mateix sistema. Com a resultat, l'entorn permet proporcionar garanties detemps real estricte a les tasques crítiques i a més aconseguir una planificació adaptativa i intel¿ligent de les tasques menys crítiques. L'entorn es defineix en termes d'un model de tasques, una arquitectura software i un conjunt de serveis. El model de tasques proposa la construcció d'una aplicació flexible de temps real estricte com a un conjunt de tasques on cadascuna és estructurada com una seqüència de components obligatòries i opcionals. L'arquitectura software proposa la separació de l'execució de les tasques en dos nivells de planificació interrelacionats, de manera que un nivel planifica les components obligatòries mitjançant una política de planificació de temps real estricte mentre que l'altre nivell planifica les components opcionals mitjançant una política de planificació basada en la utilitat. El conjunt de serveis inclou, per una part, un sistema de comunicació entre les components de les tasques (tant obligatòries com opcionals) i, per una altra, una sèrie de mecanismes per a la detecció i tractament d'excepcions temporals produïdes en execució. Per altra banda, la present tesi mostra que el proposat entorn teòric pot ésser implementat realment. En concret, es presenta el diseny i la implementació d'un sistema d'execució (es a dir, un nucli de sistema operatiu) capaç de suportar les característiques d'aquest entorn. Aquest sistema, anomenat Flexible Real-Time Linux (FRTL), ha sigut desenvolupat a partir d'un nucli mínim existent anomenat Real-Time Linux (RT-Linux). Finalment, aquesta tesi presenta una caracterització temporal completa del sistema FRTL i mesures reals de la seua sobrecàrrega. La caracterització temporal ha permés el desenvolupament d'un test de garantia complet de tot el sistema (incloent l'aplicació i el nucli FRTL), que pot ésser utilitzat per a verificar les restriccions temporals de qualsevol aplicació implementada sobre FRTL. Per la seua part, les mesures de la sobrecàrrega de FRTL mostren que aquest nucli ha sigut disenyat i implementat de manera eficient. En conjunt, es demostra que el nucli FRTL és al mateix temps predible i eficient, dos característiques que informen de la seua utilitat a la implementació real d'aplicacions flexibles de temps real estricte.Terrasa Barrena, AM. (2001). Flexible Real-Time Linux a New Environment for Flexible Hard Real-Time Systems [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/1806

Dynamic Monitoring in PANGEA Platform Using Event-Tracing Mechanisms

The use of distributed multi-agent systems (MAS) have increased in recent years, with the growing potential to handle large volumes of data and coordinate the operations of many organizations. In these systems, each agent independently handles a set of specialized tasks and cooperates to achieve the goals of the system and a high degree of flexibility. Multi-agent systems have become the most effective and widely used form of developing this type of application in which communication among various devices must be both reliable and efficient. One of the problems related to distribute computing is message passing, which is related to the interaction and coordination among intelligent agents. Consequently, a multi-agent architecture must necessarily provide a robust communication platform and control mechanisms. This paper presents the integration of an event-tracing model in an agent platform called PANGEA. Adding this new capability, the platform allows improving the monitoring and analysis of the information that agents can send/receive in order to fulfil their goals more efficiently

SPADE 3: Supporting the New Generation of Multi-Agent Systems

[EN] Although intelligent agent-based systems have existed for several years, the progression in terms of real applications or their integration in the industry have not yet reached the expected levels. During the last two decades, many agent platforms have appeared with the aim of simplifying the development of multi-agent systems. Some of these platforms have been designed for general purposes, while others have been oriented towards specific domains. However, the lack of standards and the complexity associated with supporting such systems, among other difficulties, have hampered their generalised use. This article looks in depth at the current situation of existing agent platforms, trying to analyse their current shortcomings and their expected needs in the near future. The goal of the paper is to identify possible lines of work and some of the most crucial aspects to be considered in order to popularize the application of agent technology as a dynamic and flexible solution to current problems. Moreover, the paper presents SPADE 3, a new version of the SPADE middleware, which has been totally redesigned in order to conform to the identified challenges. Finally, a case study is proposed to illustrate how SPADE 3 is able to fulfill these challenges.This work was supported in part by the Spanish Government, under Project RTI2018-095390-B-C31-AR.Palanca Cámara, J.; Terrasa Barrena, AM.; Julian Inglada, VJ.; Carrascosa Casamayor, C. (2020). SPADE 3: Supporting the New Generation of Multi-Agent Systems. IEEE Access. 8:182537-182549. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3027357S182537182549

The Information Flow Problem in multi-agent systems

[EN] One of the problems related to the multi-agent systems area is the adequate exchange of information within the system. This problem is not only related to the availability of highly efficient and sophisticated message-passing mechanisms, which are in fact provided with by current multi-agent platforms, but also to the election of an appropriate communication strategy, which may also greatly influence the ability of the system to cope with the exchange of large amounts of data. Ideally, the communication strategy should be compatible with how the information flows in the system, that is, how agents share their knowledge with each other in order to fulfill the system-level goals. In this way, MAS designers must deal with the problem of analyzing the multi-agent system with respect the communication strategy that best suits the way the information flows in that particular system. This paper presents a formalization of this problem, which has been coined as the Information Flow Problem, and also presents a complete case study with an empirical evaluation involving four well-known communication strategies and eight typical multi-agent systems.This work was partially supported by MINECO/FEDER TIN2015-65515-C4-1-R and TIN2014-55206-R of the Spanish government.Búrdalo Rapa, LA.; Terrasa Barrena, AM.; Julian Inglada, VJ.; García-Fornes, A. (2018). The Information Flow Problem in multi-agent systems. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence. 70:130-141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2018.01.011S1301417

Analyzing the effect of gain time on soft task scheduling policies in real-time systems

In hard real-time systems, gain time is defined as the difference between the Worst Case Execution Time (WCET) of a hard task and its actual processor consumption at runtime. This paper presents the results of an empirical study about how the presence of a significant amount of gain time in a hard real-time system questions the advantages of using the most representative scheduling algorithms or policies for aperiodic or soft tasks in fixed-priority preemptive systems. The work presented here refines and complements many other studies in this research area in which such policies have been introduced and compared. This work has been performed by using the authors' testing framework for soft scheduling policies, which produces actual, synthetic, randomly generated applications, executes them in an instrumented Real-Time Operating System (RTOS), and finally processes this information to obtain several statistical outcomes. The results show that, in general, the presence of a significant amount of gain time reduces the performance benefit of the scheduling policies under study when compared to serving the soft tasks in background, which is considered the theoretical worst case. In some cases, this performance benefit is so small that the use of a specific scheduling policy for soft tasks is questionable. © 2012 IEEE.This work is partially funded by research projects PROMETEO/2008/051, CSD2007-022, and TIN2008-04446.Búrdalo Rapa, LA.; Terrasa Barrena, AM.; Espinosa Minguet, AR.; García Fornes, AM. (2012). Analyzing the effect of gain time on soft task scheduling policies in real-time systems. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. 38(6):1305-1318. https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2011.95S1305131838

Contingent Convertibles. Una nueva estrategia para la obtención de capital

The current financial crisis has brought to light the problem caused by those financial institutions that, due to their importance and size, it is not possible to let them go bankrupt (too big to fail). During the last years, risk management has evolved through the implementation of new lines of action more in line with the economic environment (a good example of this would be Basel standards for the financial sector). One of the main problems faced by financial institutions in the recent years has been accomplishing the solvency ratios set in Basel standards. One new strategy for increasing the solvency ratio of a financial institution would be issuing Contingent Convertibles (CoCos). CoCos are debt instruments that are converted into shares in the event of a trigger. CoCos are hybrid securities since they have features of both debt and equity; begin their life as ordinary bonds (principal and coupon payments) and upon a specific date, if they have not been converted into equity, they mature as normal bonds. On the contrary, CoCos' debt-equity conversion would be carried out automatically when the trigger occurs (in the concrete case of capital ratios, the trigger would be set if the financial institution's solvency ratio drops below a certain level). CoCos' usefulness allows raising capital at a time when traditional equity-raise options are not feasible, avoiding the need to carry out public bailouts as occurred in the current financial crisis. Nonetheless, setting what triggers induce the automatic debt-equity conversion is key in order to use CoCos in an effective way to achieve capital requirements. In conclusion, CoCos can play a key role in preventing procyclicality to accentuate in downturns as they would enable to raise capital at a time when other options are not favorable due to market conditions, or are unattractive to shareholders. Furthermore, CoCos could help mitigate the contagion effect that leads to a possible systemic crisis.La actual crisis financiera ha sacado a la luz el problema que suponen aquellas instituciones financieras que, por su importancia y tamaño, no es posible dejarlas caer (too big to fail). A lo largo de los últimos años, la gestión del riesgo ha ido evolucionando a través de la implementación de nuevas líneas de actuación más acordes con la realidad económica (muestra de ello serían los estándares de Basilea para el sector financiero). Uno de los principales problemas que han tenido que afrontar las entidades financieras ha sido la solvencia, medida con ratios de capital de manera genérica. Una de las nuevas maneras de incrementar la solvencia sería la emisión de Contingent Convertibles (CoCos). Los CoCos son instrumentos de deuda que se transformarán en acciones en caso de que se produzca un «desencadenante» (trigger). Los CoCos son títulos híbridos ya que tienen características propias de títulos de deuda y de equity; empiezan su vida como bonos ordinarios (pago de principal y cupones) y en caso de que llegada una determinada fecha no hayan sido convertidos en equity, vencerían como bonos corrientes. Por el contrario, la conversión de deuda a equity en los CoCos se realizaría de forma automática al producirse el trigger (para el caso concreto de ratios de capital, el trigger sería perder un determinado nivel de solvencia). La utilidad de los CoCos es que permite la obtención de capital en momentos en que las vías de captación de equity tradicionales no son viables, evitando de esta forma la necesidad de llevarse a cabo rescates públicos como los acontecidos en la actual crisis financiera. No obstante, con el fin de que los CoCos sean eficaces para alcanzar los requisitos de capital, es necesario determinar qué triggers provocan su conversión automática de deuda a equity. En conclusión, los CoCos pueden desempeñar un papel fundamental evitando que la prociclicidad en momentos desfavorables se acentúe ya que permitirían obtener capital en momentos en que otras opciones no son favorables por las condiciones de mercado, o son poco atractivas para los accionistas. Además, los CoCos podrían ayudar a mitigar el efecto contagio que lleve a una posible crisis sistémica

Evaluation of the Library and Information Science degree of the Polytechnical University of Valencia

The evaluation process of the Library and Information Science’s (LIS) Degree of the Polytechnic University of Valencia is described. The development of the Spanish LIS’s academic studies and the university education evaluation procedure according to the responsible Spanish agency (Aneca) are explained; and, finally, the most noticeable results of the evaluation of the UPV Documentation’s studies are exposed

Optimizing dialysis dose in the context of frailty: an exploratory study

Introduction Frailty is a multicausal syndrome characterized by a decrease in strength, resistance and physiological function, which makes the individual vulnerable and dependent, and increases his/her mortality. This syndrome is more prevalent among older individuals, and chronic kidney disease patients, particularly those on dialysis. Dialysis dose is currently standardized for hemodialysis (HD) patients regardless of their age and functional status. However, it has been postulated that the dialysis dose required in older patients, especially frail ones, should be lower, since it could increase their degree of frailty. Then, the purpose of this study was to evaluate if there would be a correlation between the dose of Kt/V and the degree of frailty in a population of adult patients on HD. Materials and methods A cross-sectional study with 82 patients on HD in Barranquilla (Colombia) and Lobos (Argentina) was conducted. Socio-demographic and laboratory data, as well as dialysis doses (Kt/V) were recorded and scales of fragility, physical activity, gait and grip strength were applied. Then these data were correlated by a Spearman’s correlation and a logistic regression. Results CFS, social isolation, physical activity, gait speed, and prehensile strength tests were outside the reference ranges in the studied group. No significant correlation was found between dialysis dose and all the above mentioned functional tests. However, a significant and inverse correlation between physical activity and CFS was documented (score − 1.41 (CI − 2.1 to − 0.7). Conclusion No significant correlation was documented between Kt/V value and different parameters of the frailty status, but this status correlated significantly and inversely with physical activity in this group. Frailty status in hemodialysis patients was significantly higher in older individuals, although young individuals were not exempt from it

Improving the Tracing System in PANGEA Using the TRAMMAS Model

This paper presents the integration of the tracing model TRAMMAS in an agent platform called PANGEA. This platform allows to developed multiagent systems modeled as Virtual Organizations. The concepts of roles, organizations and norms are fully supported by the platform assuring flexibility and scalability. Before TRAMMAS, this platform uses a Sniffer Agent to trace the information reducing its scalability as a centralized mechanism. TRAMMAS proposes the use of event tracing in multiagent systems, as an indirect interaction and coordination mechanism to improve the amount and quality of the information that agents can perceive in order to fulfill their goals more efficiently. Moreover, the event tracing system can help reducing the amount of unnecessary information