Planar compact array with parasitic elements for MIMO systems

A compact planar array with parasitic elements is studied to be used in MIMO systems. Classical compact arrays suffer from high coupling which makes correlation and matching efficiency to be worse. A proper matching network improves these lacks although its bandwidth is low and may increase the antenna size. The proposed antenna makes use of parasitic elements to improve both correlation and efficiency. A specific software based on MoM has been developed to analyze radiating structures with several feed points. The array is optimized through a Genetic Algorithm to determine parasitic elements position in order to fulfill different figures of merit. The proposed design provides the required correlation and matching efficiency to have a good performance over a significant bandwidth.

A novel context ontology to facilitate interoperation of semantic services in environments with wearable devices

The LifeWear-Mobilized Lifestyle with Wearables (Lifewear) project attempts to create Ambient Intelligence (AmI) ecosystems by composing personalized services based on the user information, environmental conditions and reasoning outputs. Two of the most important benefits over traditional environments are 1) take advantage of wearable devices to get user information in a nonintrusive way and 2) integrate this information with other intelligent services and environmental sensors. This paper proposes a new ontology composed by the integration of users and services information, for semantically representing this information. Using an Enterprise Service Bus, this ontology is integrated in a semantic middleware to provide context-aware personalized and semantically annotated services, with discovery, composition and orchestration tasks. We show how these services support a real scenario proposed in the Lifewear project.

On a meaningful integration of web services in data-intensive biomedical environments: The DICODE approach

This paper reports on an innovative approach that aims to reduce information management costs in data-intensive and cognitively-complex biomedical environments. Recognizing the importance of prominent high-performance computing paradigms and large data processing technologies as well as collaboration support systems to remedy data-intensive issues, it adopts a hybrid approach by building on the synergy of these technologies. The proposed approach provides innovative Web-based workbenches that integrate and orchestrate a set of interoperable services that reduce the data-intensiveness and complexity overload at critical decision points to a manageable level, thus permitting stakeholders to be more productive and concentrate on creative activities.

Novel techniques for automorphism group computation

Graph automorphism (GA) is a classical problem, in which the objective is to compute the automorphism group of an input graph. In this work we propose four novel techniques to speed up algorithms that solve the GA problem by exploring a search tree. They increase the performance of the algorithm by allowing to reduce the depth of the search tree, and by effectively pruning it. We formally prove that a GA algorithm that uses these techniques correctly computes the automorphism group of the input graph. We also describe how the techniques have been incorporated into the GA algorithm conauto, as conauto-2.03, with at most an additive polynomial increase in its asymptotic time complexity. We have experimentally evaluated the impact of each of the above techniques with several graph families. We have observed that each of the techniques by itself significantly reduces the number of processed nodes of the search tree in some subset of graphs, which justifies the use of each of them. Then, when they are applied together, their effect is combined, leading to reductions in the number of processed nodes in most graphs. This is also reflected in a reduction of the running time, which is substantial in some graph families.

La censura del tema deportivo en la prensa durante la posguerra española (1939-1945)

La presente tesis doctoral pretende arrojar nueva luz sobre la utilización de la prensa durante los primeros años del franquismo. En concreto, el objetivo ha sido estudiar la censura del tema deportivo dentro del sistema censorio de los primeros años de posguerra civil en España, una área no estudiada hasta hoy y que entendemos fundamental para entender el desarrollo del deporte durante el llamado primer franquismo. Para ello, se estudiaron de manera pormenorizada los actores principales y los pasos básicos del proceso de censura; los métodos utilizados, tanto materiales como personales, para hacer efectiva ésta; y, por último, sus manifestaciones reales en el ámbito de la información deportiva: qué se censuró, por parte de quién, de qué forma y por qué motivos. De este modo, pretendemos llenar una de las lagunas de investigación que aún quedan dentro del estudio de la censura de prensa durante el franquismo. La metodología utilizada es la técnica historiográfica. Basado en el análisis crítico y en la interpretación de fuentes primarias, dicho método trata de establecer marcos históricos de referencia a través del estudio pormenorizado de las circunstancias del pasado. Ello implica una estructura algo distinta a la de las tesis doctorales de otras áreas de estudio puesto que, exceptuando la introducción, toda la tesis es la exposición de los resultados de la investigación llevada a cabo. Se ha utilizado cuantiosa documentación de los archivos General de la Administracion (Alcalá de Henares) y Centrale dello Stato (Roma) no manejada anteriormente por ningún investigador. La prensa periódica de la época y la legislación que afecta a nuestro tema de estudio también han sido ampliamente investigadas, tanto en el contexto español como en el italiano. Nuestra investigación arroja los siguientes resultados. Efectivamente, existió censura de prensa en el tema deportivo en las siguientes temáticas fundamentales: cuestiones económicas, autoridades y jerarquías, uso del lenguaje y comportamiento de los deportistas. En la mayor parte de los casos, la censura se ejerce en la información deportiva por razones ajenas al propio deporte. No se puede afirmar que existan diferencias en el tratamiento general entre medios de la Prensa del Movimiento y otros de titularidad privada o eclesiástica, si bien la aplicación de la censura no fue homogénea sino arbitraria en muchos casos. El sistema de censura de prensa español del primer franquismo toma la mayoría de sus rasgos del modelo fascista italiano, aunque tiene alguna característica propia como la censura previa y el catolicismo imperante. ABSTRACT This doctoral thesis aims to shed light on the use of press during the first years of francoism. The particular objective was to study the censorship of the sport topic into the general system of censorship carried out after the Spanish Civil War. It is a subject comparatively understudied to date but a key aspect to understand the development of sport during the so called early francoism. To this end, an in-depth study was made on key actors, main steps of censorship process, human and material methods used to ensure its effectiveness, and the actual manifestations in sports information area: what was censored, by whom, how and why. This should ensure us to fill the historiographical gap within the research on Francoʼs press censorship. Methodology used was historiographic research. It is based on critical analysis and interpretation of primary sources and seeks to establish historical reference frameworks tracing back the past in detail. It determines a different doctoral thesis structure in some aspects. Except the introduction, the whole document is the report and explanation of the results of research. A large amount of unexplored documents from the Archivo General de la Administración (Alcalá de Henares, Spain) and the Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Rome, Italy) has been used. The press of the period and legislation about our topic have also been analysed in detail both in Spain and Italy. Our research states these results. We can affirm that press censorship actually existed on sports topic in these thematic priorities: economical issues, authorities and hierarchies, use of language and sportsmen behaviours. In most cases, the censorship of sports information is exercised for reasons unconnected to sport. It cannot be concluded that general differences were applied in press censorship between State-owned media and private or church media although its implementation was non-uniform and arbitrary in many cases. The system of press censorship in Spain during the early francoism is clearly inspired by fascist Italy system copying most of its features although Spain had a few specific characteristics like prior censorship and catholicism.

Contribution to Load-Frequency Regulation of a Hydropower Plant with Long Tail-Race Tunnel

In this paper, a hydroelectric power plant with long tail-race tunnel has been modelled for assessing its contribution to secondary regulation reserve. Cavitation problems, caused by the discharge conduit length, are expected downstream the turbine where low pressure appears during regulation manoeuvres. Therefore, governor's gains should be selected taking into account these phenomena. On the other hand, regulation services bidden by the plant operator should fulfil TSO (Transmission System Operator) quality requirements. A methodology for tuning governor PI gains is proposed and applied to a Hydro power plant in pre-design phase in northwest area of Spain. The PI gains adjustment proposed provides a proper plant response, according to some established indexes, while avoiding cavitation phenomena.