El baloncesto para alumnos con síndrome de Down: propuesta didáctica

Es necesario optimizar aspectos referentes a las capacidades y actitudes de los alumnos con síndrome de Down. Estos aspectos mejorables ayudarán a su desarrollo personal. Pretendemos que los alumnos con esta discapacidad, progresen y mejoren su visión personal, aumenten su autoestima y autonomía y logren desenvolverse adecuadamente en su vida cotidiana. Para ello vamos a crear y poner en práctica una unidad didáctica de Educación Física adaptada, donde el baloncesto será la herramienta fundamental. Dicha unidad didáctica pretende que el alumnado desarrolle su identidad personal al máximo. Para conseguir esto hay que conocer las necesidades individuales de cada uno y darles respuesta a través de una metodología específica y óptima. En nuestra UD, priorizaremos métodos que favorezcan la experiencia directa, la comunicación o la iniciativa; emplearemos estrategias para motivar y desarrollar el interés de los alumnos; diseñaremos diversas actividades para trabajar un mismo contenido; realizaremos ejercicios individuales o grupales y adecuaremos tiempos entre otras adaptaciones. Y todo ello con el apoyo verbal, visual o manual del docente. Con todo lo expuesto esperamos atender y satisfacer las necesidades que cada alumno plantee. ABSTRACT It is important to optimize aspects relating to the skills and attitudes of students with Down Syndrome. The areas for improvement will help with their personal development, self-esteem and increase their personal autonomy to deal with their daily lives. To do this we will create and implement an adapted educational unit using basketball as a fundamental tool. This educational unit is intended for students to develop their personal identity (individuality) to the fullest. To achieve this we must meet the individual needs of each student and apply them through specific and optimal (ideal). In our educational unit, we will prioritize methods that favour the direct experience, communication or initiative. By employing strategies that motivate and develop the student´s interests along with designing various activities that work the same content, for individual and group exercises. All exercises whether verbal, visual or manual will be done under teacher´s supervision. With all the above we hope to serve and meet the needs of each student.

Survey on student motivation and approval of educational environment at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid within the European Higher Education area implementation

A recent study elaborated by Vicerrectorado de Ordenación Académica y Planificación Estratégica of Technical University of Madrid (UPM) defines the satisfaction of the university student body as "the response that the University offers to the expectations and demands of service of the students, considered in a general way ". Besides an indicator of academic and institutional insertion of the student, the assessment of student engagement allows us to adapt the academic offer and the extension services of the University to the real needs of the students. The process of convergence towards the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) raises the need to form in competitions, that is to say, of developing in our students capacities and knowledge beyond the purely theoretical-practical thing. Therefore, the perception and experience of the educational process and environment by the students is an important issue to be addressed to accomplish their expectations and achieve a curriculum accordingly to EHEA expectations. The present study aims to explore the student motivation and approval of the educational environment at the UPM. To this end a total of 97 students enrolled in the undergraduate program of Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering and Agronomic Engineering at UPM were surveyed. The survey consisted of 40 questions divided in three blocks. The first one of 20 questions of personal character in that they were gathering, besides the sex and the age, the degree of fulfilment, implication and dedication with the institution and the academic tasks. In the second block we identify 10 questions related to the perception of the student on the teaching quality, and finally a block of 10 questions regarding the Bologna Process. The students personal motivation was moderately high, with a score of 3.6 (all scores are provided on a 5-point scale), being the most valuable items obtaining a university degree (4,3) and the friendship between students (4,2). Any significant difference was shown between sexes (P=0.23) since the averages for this block of questions were of 3.7±0.3 and 3.5±0.4 for women and men respectively. The students are moderately satisfied with their graduate studies with an average score of 3,2, being the questions that reflect a minor satisfaction the research profile of the teachers (2,8) and the organization of the Schools (2,9). The best valued questions are related to the usefulness and quality of the degrees, with 3,5 and 3,4 respectively, and to the interest of the courses within the degree (3,4). For sexes, the results of this block of questions are similar (3.1±0.3 and 3.2±0.3 for men and women respectively=0.79). Also, there were no differences (P=0.39) between the students who arrange work and studies or do not work (3.1±0.2 and 3.2±0.3 respectively). In conclusion, students at UPM present an acceptable degree of motivation and satisfaction with regard to the studies and services that offer their respective Schools. Both characteristics receive the same value both for men and for women and so much for students who arrange work and studies as for those who devote themselves only to studying. In a significant way, students who are more engaged and are in-class attendants present the major degree of satisfaction.Overall, there is a great lack of information regarding the Bologna Process. In fact to the majority, they would like to know more on what it is, what it means and what changes will involve its implementation.

A characterisation of passive and active interactions and their influence on student's achievement using Moodle LMS Logs

During the last years, there has been much concern about learning management systems' (LMS) effectiveness when compared to traditional learning and about how to assess students' participation during the course. The tracking and monitoring capabilities of most recent LMS have made it possible to analyse every interaction in the system. The issues addressed on this study are: a) Is LMS student's interaction an indicator of academic performance?; b) Are different results in performance expected between distance and in-class LMS-supported education?; c) How can LMS interactions from logs be categorised?; d) May this categorisation detect 'learning witnesses'? To answer these questions, a set of interaction types from Moodle LMS activity record logs has been analysed during two years in online and in-class Master's degrees at the UPM. The results show partial or no evidence of influence between interaction indicators and academic performance, although the proposed categorisation may help detect learning witnesses.

Handy or practical student. Objective: to pass or to learn

With the introduction of the European Higher Education Area and the development of the "Bologna" method in learning certain technological subjects, a pilot assessment procedure was launched in the "old" plan to observe, monitor and analyze the acquiring knowledge of senior students in various academic courses. This paper is a reflection on culture and knowledge. Will students accommodate to get a lower score on tests because they know they have a lot of tooltips to achieve their objectives?. Are their skills lower for these reason?.

Geometric characteristics of conics in Bézier form

Derive coordinate-free expressions for geometric characteristics of conics written in Bézier form in terms of their control points and weights.

Application of gas-cooled Accelerator Driven System (ADS) transmutation devices to sustainable nuclear energy development

The conceptual design of a pebble bed gas-cooled transmutation device is shown with the aim to evaluate its potential for its deployment in the context of the sustainable nuclear energy development, which considers high temperature reactors for their operation in cogeneration mode, producing electricity, heat and Hydrogen. As differential characteristics our device operates in subcritical mode, driven by a neutron source activated by an accelerator that adds clear safety advantages and fuel flexibility opening the possibility to reduce the nuclear stockpile producing energy from actual LWR irradiated fuel with an efficiency of 45?46%, either in the form of Hydrogen, electricity, or both.

Performance of a transmutation advanced device for sustainable energy application

Preliminary studies have been performed to design a device for nuclear waste transmutation and hydrogen generation based on a gas-cooled pebble bed accelerator driven system, TADSEA (Transmutation Advanced Device for Sustainable Energy Application). In previous studies we have addressed the viability of an ADS Transmutation device that uses as fuel wastes from the existing LWR power plants, encapsulated in graphite in the form of pebble beds, cooled by helium which enables high temperatures (in the order of 1200 K), to generate hydrogen from water either by high temperature electrolysis or by thermochemical cycles. For designing this device several configurations were studied, including several reflectors thickness, to achieve the desired parameters, the transmutation of nuclear waste and the production of 100 MW of thermal power. In this paper new studies performed on deep burn in-core fuel management strategy for LWR waste are presented. The fuel cycle on TADSEA device has been analyzed based on both: driven and transmutation fuel that had been proposed by the General Atomic design of a gas turbine-modular helium reactor. The transmutation results of the three fuel management strategies, using driven, transmutation and standard LWR spent fuel were compared, and several parameters describing the neutron performance of TADSEA nuclear core as the fuel and moderator temperature reactivity coefficients and transmutation chain, are also presented

Free-Form, High Energy Performance, Transparent Vacuum Envelope

El artículo examina un nuevo sistema envolvente ligero, delgado, con ahorro energético, libre de formas diseñado para su uso en proyectos de arquitectura.

Novel free-form optical surface design with spiral symmetry

Manufacturing technologies as injection molding or embossing specify their production limits for minimum radii of the vertices or draft angle for demolding, for instance. These restrictions may limit the system optical efficiency or affect the generation of undesired artifacts on the illumination pattern when dealing with optical design. A novel manufacturing concept is presented here, in which the optical surfaces are not obtained from the usual revolution symmetry with respect to a central axis (z axis), but they are calculated as free-form surfaces describing a spiral trajectory around z axis. The main advantage of this new concept lies in the manufacturing process: a molded piece can be easily separated from its mold just by applying a combination of rotational movement around axis z and linear movement along axis z, even for negative draft angles. The general designing procedure will be described in detail

Free-form Fresnel RXI-RR Köhler design for high-concentration photovoltaics with spectrum-splitting

Development of a novel HCPV nonimaging concentrator with high concentration (>500x) and built-in spectrum splitting concept is presented. It uses the combination of a commercial concentration GaInP/GaInAs/Ge 3J cell and a concentration Back-Point-Contact (BPC) silicon cell for efficient spectral utilization, and external confinement techniques for recovering the 3J cell's reflection. The primary optical element (POE) is a flat Fresnel lens and the secondary optical element (SOE) is a free-form RXI-type concentrator with a band-pass filter embedded in it - Both the POE and SOE performing Köhler integration to produce light homogenization on the receiver. The band-pass filter transmits the IR photons in the 900-1200 nm band to the silicon cell. A design target of an "equivalent" cell efficiency ~46% is predicted using commercial 39% 3J and 26% Si cells. A projected CPV module efficiency of greater than 38% is achievable at a concentration level larger than 500X with a wide acceptance angle of ±1°. A first proof-of concept receiver prototype has been manufactured using a simpler optical architecture (with a lower concentration, ~100x and lower simulated added efficiency), and experimental measurements have shown up to 39.8% 4J receiver efficiency using a 3J cell with a peak efficiency of 36.9%.

Virtual Learning Environments In Faculties Of Education In Spain: Changes On Student Attitude

This paper presents some results of a R+D project entitled “e-Learning system for Practical Training of University students in Education Faculties (ForELearn)”, developed in Spain by the Universidad de Granada and the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education. In a first phase, through the use of AulaWeb Learning Management System, a set of adaptations and improvements of this software application have been done for the design and development of an experimental course of Practicum supervision. Next, the implementation of this course by means of a group of face to face and online seminars provides experimental data for the analysis and discussion about the point of view of users (preservice teachers) that have tracked their practice supervision with AulaWeb.

Free-Form, High Energy Performance, Transparent Envelope

This article examines, from the energy viewpoint, a new lightweight, slim, high energy efficient, light-transmitting envelope system, providing for seamless, free-form designs for use in architectural projects. The research was based on envelope components already existing on the market, especially components implemented with granular silica gel insulation, as this is the most effective translucent thermal insulation there is today. The tests run on these materials revealed that there is not one that has all the features required of the new envelope model, although some do have properties that could be exploited to generate this envelope, namely, the vacuum chamber of vacuum insulated panels (VIP), the monolithic aerogel used as insulation in some prototypes, reinforced polyester barriers. By combining these three design components — the high-performance thermal insulation of the vacuum chamber combined with monolithic silica gel insulation, the free-form design potential provided by materials like reinforced polyester and epoxy resins—, we have been able to define and test a new, variable geometry, energy-saving envelope system.

Student Reciprocal Peer Teaching as a Method for Active Learning: An Experience in an Electrotechnical Laboratory

Active learning is one of the most efficient mechanisms for learning, according to the psychology of learning. When students act as teachers for other students, the communication is more fluent and knowledge is transferred easier than in a traditional classroom. This teaching method is referred to in the literature as reciprocal peer teaching. In this study, the method is applied to laboratory sessions of a higher education institution course, and the students who act as teachers are referred to as ‘‘laboratory monitors.’’ A particular way to select the monitors and its impact in the final marks is proposed. A total of 181 students participated in the experiment, experiences with laboratory monitors are discussed, and methods for motivating and training laboratory monitors and regular students are proposed. The types of laboratory sessions that can be led by classmates are discussed. This work is related to the changes in teaching methods in the Spanish higher education system, prompted by the Bologna Process for the construction of the European Higher Education Area

Abstract multiple specialization and its application to program parallelization.

Program specialization optimizes programs for known valúes of the input. It is often the case that the set of possible input valúes is unknown, or this set is infinite. However, a form of specialization can still be performed in such cases by means of abstract interpretation, specialization then being with respect to abstract valúes (substitutions), rather than concrete ones. We study the múltiple specialization of logic programs based on abstract interpretation. This involves in principie, and based on information from global analysis, generating several versions of a program predicate for different uses of such predicate, optimizing these versions, and, finally, producing a new, "multiply specialized" program. While múltiple specialization has received theoretical attention, little previous evidence exists on its practicality. In this paper we report on the incorporation of múltiple specialization in a parallelizing compiler and quantify its effects. A novel approach to the design and implementation of the specialization system is proposed. The resulting implementation techniques result in identical specializations to those of the best previously proposed techniques but require little or no modification of some existing abstract interpreters. Our results show that, using the proposed techniques, the resulting "abstract múltiple specialization" is indeed a relevant technique in practice. In particular, in the parallelizing compiler application, a good number of run-time tests are eliminated and invariants extracted automatically from loops, resulting generally in lower overheads and in several cases in increased speedups.

Abstract specialization and its application to program parallelization

Program specialization optimizes programs for known valúes of the input. It is often the case that the set of possible input valúes is unknown, or this set is infinite. However, a form of specialization can still be performed in such cases by means of abstract interpretation, specialization then being with respect to abstract valúes (substitutions), rather than concrete ones. This paper reports on the application of abstract múltiple specialization to automatic program parallelization in the &-Prolog compiler. Abstract executability, the main concept underlying abstract specialization, is formalized, the design of the specialization system presented, and a non-trivial example of specialization in automatic parallelization is given.