Relationships among multiple intelligences, motor performance and academic achievement in secondary school children

This study examines the relationships between multiple intelligences, academic achievement and motor performance in a group of secondary school children. Four hundred and eighty schoolchildren participated in this study (171 female and 309 male) with an average age of 13.33 years (SD: 1.41). The Revised self-efficacy Inventory for Multiple Intelligences (IAIM-R) and the motor test Sportcomp were applied, and the average results of the academic year they had made were obtained. The analysis of the results showed how female scored significantly higher on the Linguistic, Spatial and Interpersonal intelligences, and older pupils scored significantly higher on the linguistic and naturalistic intelligences. It was the logical-mathematical intelligence which showed significant relationships with academic performance and it was the intelligence that better predicted this achievement. It was the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence that was significantly related to motor competence and the best intelligence that predicted its achievement. Finally, indicate that schoolchildren with better scores in the motor test were those who scored higher in both academic achievement and all the multiple intelligences, with the exception of musical intelligence.

Incorporating Group Recommendations to Recommender Systems: Alternatives and Performance

La importancia de los sistemas de recomendación ha experimentado un crecimiento exponencial como consecuencia del auge de las redes sociales. En esta tesis doctoral presentaré una amplia visión sobre el estado del arte de los sistemas de recomendación. Incialmente, estos estaba basados en fitrado demográfico, basado en contendio o colaborativo. En la actualidad, estos sistemas incorporan alguna información social al proceso de recomendación. En el futuro utilizarán información implicita, local y personal proveniente del Internet de las cosas. Los sistemas de recomendación basados en filtrado colaborativo se pueden modificar con el fin de realizar recomendaciones a grupos de usuarios. Existen trabajos previos que han incluido estas modificaciones en diferentes etapas del algoritmo de filtrado colaborativo: búsqueda de los vecinos, predicción de las votaciones y elección de las recomendaciones. En esta tesis doctoral proporcionaré un nuevo método que realizar el proceso de unficación (pasar de varios usuarios a un grupo) en el primer paso del algoritmo de filtrado colaborativo: cálculo de la métrica de similaridad. Proporcionaré una formalización completa del método propuesto. Explicaré cómo obtener el conjunto de k vecinos del grupo de usuarios y mostraré cómo obtener recomendaciones usando dichos vecinos. Asimismo, incluiré un ejemplo detallando cada paso del método propuesto en un sistema de recomendación compuesto por 8 usuarios y 10 items. Las principales características del método propuesto son: (a) es más rápido (más eficiente) que las alternativas proporcionadas por otros autores, y (b) es al menos tan exacto y preciso como otras soluciones estudiadas. Para contrastar esta hipótesis realizaré varios experimentos que miden la precisión, la exactitud y el rendimiento del método. Los resultados obtenidos se compararán con los resultados de otras alternativas utilizadas en la recomendación de grupos. Los experimentos se realizarán con las bases de datos de MovieLens y Netflix. ABSTRACT The importance of recommender systems has grown exponentially with the advent of social networks. In this PhD thesis I will provide a wide vision about the state of the art of recommender systems. They were initially based on demographic, contentbased and collaborative filtering. Currently, these systems incorporate some social information to the recommendation process. In the future, they will use implicit, local and personal information from the Internet of Things. As we will see here, recommender systems based on collaborative filtering can be used to perform recommendations to group of users. Previous works have made this modification in different stages of the collaborative filtering algorithm: establishing the neighborhood, prediction phase and determination of recommended items. In this PhD thesis I will provide a new method that carry out the unification process (many users to one group) in the first stage of the collaborative filtering algorithm: similarity metric computation. I will provide a full formalization of the proposed method. I will explain how to obtain the k nearest neighbors of the group of users and I will show how to get recommendations using those users. I will also include a running example of a recommender system with 8 users and 10 items detailing all the steps of the method I will present. The main highlights of the proposed method are: (a) it will be faster (more efficient) that the alternatives provided by other authors, and (b) it will be at least as precise and accurate as other studied solutions. To check this hypothesis I will conduct several experiments measuring the accuracy, the precision and the performance of my method. I will compare these results with the results generated by other methods of group recommendation. The experiments will be carried out using MovieLens and Netflix datasets.

Effect of late weaning and use of alternative cages on performance of does, suckling and fattening rabbits under extensive reproductive management

The effects of the combined use of long lactation periods (46 days) with alternative cages on the reproductive and growth performance of 104 rabbit does and their litters during five consecutive reproductive cycles were studied. Half of does were housed in conventional polyvalent cages (39 cm×100 cm×30 cm) and the other half in alternative polyvalent cages (39 cm×100 cm×60 cm), with a raised platform. Half of the rabbit does in each type of cage were weaned at 32 and the other half at 46 days after parturition. Longer lactation negatively affected the body weight (P<0.001), fat and energy content (P<0.05) of rabbit does at the end of the lactation period, but this effect decreased with the number of parturitions. Fertility, prolificacy and doe mortality were not affected by lactation length. Late weaning led to higher litter size (by 8.9%) and litter weight (by 11.3%) at the end of growing period (P<0.001) and lower feed conversion ratio per cage during the experimental period (13.5%) than weaning at 32 day (P<0.001). These results were paralleled by lower mortality (12.6 vs. 17.6%; P<0.01) of young rabbits weaned later during the overall experimental period. Differences in performance as a result of different weaning ages were only observed during cycles with worst health status (third and fifth cycles) in which late weaning decreased mortality. Type of cage did not affect doe body weight and body condition, mortality, fertility, prolificacy and litter size during the five reproductive cycles. Nevertheless, at day 21 litter weight and feed conversion ratio between 3 and 21 day were 4.2% higher (P<0.01) and 5.0% lower (P<0.05), respectively, in animals housed in alternative rather than in conventional cages. Alternative cages also led to heavier litters at 59 days (P<0.01). It was concluded that the combined use of longer lactations and cages with higher available surface with a raised platform could be alternatives to improve animal welfare in farmed rabbit.

Effect of late weaning and use of alternative cages on performance of does, suckling and fattening rabbits under extensive reproductive management

The effects of the combined use of long lactation periods (46 days) with alternative cages on the reproductive and growth performance of 104 rabbit does and their litters during five consecutive reproductive cycles were studied. Half of does were housed in conven- tional polyvalent cages (39 cm x 100 cm x 30 cm) and the other half in alternative polyvalent cages (39 cm x 100 cm x 60 cm), with a raised platform. Half of the rabbit does in each type of cage were weaned at 32 and the other half at 46 days after parturition. Longer lactation negatively affected the body weight ( P o 0.001), fat and energy content ( P o 0.05) of rabbit does at the end of the lactation period, but this effect decreased with the number of parturitions. Fertility, prolificacy and doe mortality were not affected by lactation length. Late weaning led to higher litter size (by 8.9%) and litter weight (by 11.3%) at the end of growing period ( P o 0.001) and lower feed conversion ratio per cage during the experimental period (13.5%) than weaning at 32 day ( P o 0.001). These results were paralleled by lower mortality (12.6 vs. 17.6%; P o 0.01) of young rabbits weaned later during the overall experimental period. Differences in performance as a result of different weaning ages were only observed during cycles with worst health status (third and fifth cycles) in which late weaning decreased mortality. Type of cage did not affect doe body weight and body condition, mortality, fertility, prolificacy and litter size during the five reproductive cycles. Nevertheless, at day 21 litter weight and feed conversion ratio between 3 and 21 day were 4.2% higher ( P o 0.01) and 5.0% lower ( P o 0.05), respectively, in animals housed in alternative rather than in conventional cages. Alternative cages also led to heavier litters at 59 days ( P o 0.01). It was concluded that the combined use of longer lactations and cages with higher available surface with a raised platform could be alternatives to improve animal welfare in farmed rabbit.