Projecte d'instal·lació d'un mòdul autònom per producció de calefacció amb caldera de biomassa

L’Ajuntament d’un municipi de la comarca de la Selva disposa d’un complex esportiuformat per un edifici amb piscines climatitzades i un pavelló d’esports. Actualment laproducció de calefacció es realitza mitjançant calderes amb cremador de gasoil. Degut al’antiguitat d’aquests equips, a l’elevat cost que suposa la producció amb aquest tipus decombustible i tenint en compte que el municipi no disposa de xarxa de distribució de gasciutat, l’ajuntament contempla la possibilitat d’instal•lar un sistema de producciócentralitzat amb caldera de biomassa.L’objecte d’aquest projecte és el disseny i definició de la instal•lació d’una caldera deproducció d’aigua calenta sanitària i de calefacció mitjançant l’ús de biomassa tipuspellets de fusta integrada dins un mòdul prefabricat que inclou la sitja d’emmagatzematgei tots els elements necessaris, formant un sistema compacte i autònom per alsubministrament i distribució de l’aigua calenta per als dos edificis que formen el complexesportiu de la población. L’àmbit d’aplicació d’aquest projecte és:- Disseny i implantació del Mòdul autònom de producció de calefacció- Dimensionat dels circuits hidràulics de distribució a punts deCom a punt de partida per dimensionar la nova instal•lació de producció s’han tingut encompte les potències instal•lades actuals però també s’han realitat els càlculs de lesnecessitats actuals tenint en compte les exigències del nou Reglament d’Instal•lacionsTèrmiques en els Edificis (RITE 2007) quant a condicions interiors i d’estalvi energètic

Comunicador para personas con discapacidad: entregable 2.2: maqueta no funcional para cada uno de los subsistemas

Entregable seguiment conveni C-08197 amb l'empresa B&J Adaptaciones

Comunicador para personas con discapacidad: entregable 3: desarrollo de prototipos funcionales

Entregable del convenio C-08197 con la empresa B&J Adaptaciones

Comunicador para personas con discapacidad. Entregable 4. Evolutivos maquetas y prototipos

Entregable del convenio C-08197 con la empresa B&J adaptaciones

Avoiding transcription factor competition at promoter level increases the chances of obtaining oscillations

Background: The ultimate goal of synthetic biology is the conception and construction of genetic circuits that are reliable with respect to their designed function (e.g. oscillators, switches). This task remains still to be attained due to the inherent synergy of the biological building blocks and to an insufficient feedback between experiments and mathematical models. Nevertheless, the progress in these directions has been substantial. Results: It has been emphasized in the literature that the architecture of a genetic oscillator must include positive (activating) and negative (inhibiting) genetic interactions in order to yield robust oscillations. Our results point out that the oscillatory capacity is not only affected by the interaction polarity but by how it is implemented at promoter level. For a chosen oscillator architecture, we show by means of numerical simulations that the existence or lack of competition between activator and inhibitor at promoter level affects the probability of producing oscillations and also leaves characteristic fingerprints on the associated period/amplitude features. Conclusions: In comparison with non-competitive binding at promoters, competition drastically reduces the region of the parameters space characterized by oscillatory solutions. Moreover, while competition leads to pulse-like oscillations with long-tail distribution in period and amplitude for various parameters or noisy conditions, the non-competitive scenario shows a characteristic frequency and confined amplitude values. Our study also situates the competition mechanism in the context of existing genetic oscillators, with emphasis on the Atkinson oscillator.

Hypothalamus transcriptome profile suggests an anorexia-cachexia syndrome in the anx/anx mouse model

The anx/anx mouse displays poor appetite and lean appearance and is considered a good model for the study of anorexia nervosa. To identify new genes involved in feeding behavior and body weight regulation we performed an expression profiling in the hypothalamus of the anx/anx mice. Using commercial microarrays we detected 156 differentially expressed genes and validated 92 of those using TaqMan low-density arrays. The expression of a set of 87 candidate genes selected based on literature evidences was also quantified by TaqMan low-density arrays. Our results showed enrichment in deregulated genes involved in cell death, cell morphology and cancer as well as an alteration of several signaling circuits involved in energy balance including neuropeptide Y and melanocortin signaling. The expression profile along with the phenotype led us to conclude that anx/anx mice resemble the anorexia-cachexia syndrome typically observed in cancer, infection with human immunodeficiency virus or chronic diseases, rather than starvation, and that anx/anx mice could be considered a good model for the treatment and investigation of this condition.

Cannabinoid addiction: behavioral models and neural correlates

The use of cannabis sativa preparations as recreational drugs can be traced back to the earliest civilizations. However, animal models of cannabinoid addiction allowing the exploration of neural correlates of cannabinoid abuse have been developed only recently. We review these models and the role of the CB1 cannabinoid receptor, the main target of natural cannabinoids, and its interaction with opioid and dopamine transmission in reward circuits. Extensive reviews on the molecular basis of cannabinoid action are available elsewhere (Piomelli et al., 2000;Schlicker and Kathmann, 2001).

La gestió dels llibres electrònics a la Biblioteca virtual de la UOC

El text que es presenta mostra com es du a terme la gestió dels llibres electrònics a la Biblioteca virtual (d'ara endavant BV) de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (d'ara endavant UOC). La BV posa un èmfasi especial en l'adquisició de llibres digitals per millorar l'accés als usuaris als recursos i col¿leccions d'una universitat que es caracteritza per la virtualitat. El document presenta, en primer lloc, l'entorn en què s'adquireixen i s'utilitzen els llibres electrònics: s'expliquen els diferents escenaris d'adquisició en els quals es pot trobar la biblioteca i es defineixen els circuits interns que en permeten la gestió i els processos tècnics dels documents. A continuació es mostren les diferents opcions d'accés i consulta de llibres electrònics que actualment s'ofereixen des de la biblioteca i s'expliquen les anàlisis d'usos d'aquests documents. Finalment es presenten les conclusions a les quals arriba la BV sobre el nou context de llibres electrònics.

A multi-objective model for a multi-period distribution management problem

The problems arising in commercial distribution are complex and involve several players and decision levels. One important decision is relatedwith the design of the routes to distribute the products, in an efficient and inexpensive way.This article deals with a complex vehicle routing problem that can beseen as a new extension of the basic vehicle routing problem. The proposed model is a multi-objective combinatorial optimization problemthat considers three objectives and multiple periods, which models in a closer way the real distribution problems. The first objective is costminimization, the second is balancing work levels and the third is amarketing objective. An application of the model on a small example, with5 clients and 3 days, is presented. The results of the model show the complexity of solving multi-objective combinatorial optimization problems and the contradiction between the several distribution management objective.

Iterated local search

Iterated Local Search has many of the desirable features of a metaheuristic: it is simple, easy to implement, robust, and highly effective. The essential idea of Iterated Local Search lies in focusing the search not on the full space of solutions but on a smaller subspace defined by the solutions that are locally optimal for a given optimization engine. The success of Iterated Local Search lies in the biased sampling of this set of local optima. How effective this approach turns out to be depends mainly on the choice of the local search, the perturbations, and the acceptance criterion. So far, in spite of its conceptual simplicity, it has lead to a number of state-of-the-art results without the use of too much problem-specific knowledge. But with further work so that the different modules are well adapted to the problem at hand, Iterated Local Search can often become a competitive or even state of the artalgorithm. The purpose of this review is both to give a detailed description of this metaheuristic and to show where it stands in terms of performance.

Assigning proctors to exams with scatter search

In this paper we present an algorithm to assign proctors toexams. This NP-hard problem is related to the generalized assignmentproblem with multiple objectives. The problem consists of assigningteaching assistants to proctor final exams at a university. We formulatethis problem as a multiobjective integer program (IP) with a preferencefunction and a workload-fairness function. We then consider also a weightedobjective that combines both functions. We develop a scatter searchprocedure and compare its outcome with solutions found by solving theIP model with CPLEX 6.5. Our test problems are real instances from aUniversity in Spain.

Adaptive approach heuristics for the generalized assignment problem

The Generalized Assignment Problem consists in assigning a setof tasks to a set of agents with minimum cost. Each agent hasa limited amount of a single resource and each task must beassigned to one and only one agent, requiring a certain amountof the resource of the agent. We present new metaheuristics forthe generalized assignment problem based on hybrid approaches.One metaheuristic is a MAX-MIN Ant System (MMAS), an improvedversion of the Ant System, which was recently proposed byStutzle and Hoos to combinatorial optimization problems, and itcan be seen has an adaptive sampling algorithm that takes inconsideration the experience gathered in earlier iterations ofthe algorithm. Moreover, the latter heuristic is combined withlocal search and tabu search heuristics to improve the search.A greedy randomized adaptive search heuristic (GRASP) is alsoproposed. Several neighborhoods are studied, including one basedon ejection chains that produces good moves withoutincreasing the computational effort. We present computationalresults of the comparative performance, followed by concludingremarks and ideas on future research in generalized assignmentrelated problems.

Metaheuristics for the bus-driver scheduling problem

We present new metaheuristics for solving real crew scheduling problemsin a public transportation bus company. Since the crews of thesecompanies are drivers, we will designate the problem by the bus-driverscheduling problem. Crew scheduling problems are well known and severalmathematical programming based techniques have been proposed to solvethem, in particular using the set-covering formulation. However, inpractice, there exists the need for improvement in terms of computationalefficiency and capacity of solving large-scale instances. Moreover, thereal bus-driver scheduling problems that we consider can present variantaspects of the set covering, as for example a different objectivefunction, implying that alternative solutions methods have to bedeveloped. We propose metaheuristics based on the following approaches:GRASP (greedy randomized adaptive search procedure), tabu search andgenetic algorithms. These metaheuristics also present some innovationfeatures based on and genetic algorithms. These metaheuristics alsopresent some innovation features based on the structure of the crewscheduling problem, that guide the search efficiently and able them tofind good solutions. Some of these new features can also be applied inthe development of heuristics to other combinatorial optimizationproblems. A summary of computational results with real-data problems ispresented.

Exploiting fitness distance correlation of set covering problems

The set covering problem is an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problemthat arises in applications ranging from crew scheduling in airlines todriver scheduling in public mass transport. In this paper we analyze searchspace characteristics of a widely used set of benchmark instances throughan analysis of the fitness-distance correlation. This analysis shows thatthere exist several classes of set covering instances that have a largelydifferent behavior. For instances with high fitness distance correlation,we propose new ways of generating core problems and analyze the performanceof algorithms exploiting these core problems.

Risc cardiovascular en pacients que consulten a urgències d´un hospital general amb un esdeveniment vascular agut

La malaltia cardiovascular és una de les principals causes de morbimortalitat. Els factors de risc cardiovasculars són diversos. Hi ha moltes guies de prevenció clínica i escales de risc. Malgrat l’existència de guies de pràctica clínica i millor identificació dels factors de risc, persisteix l’impacte negatiu cardiovascular. L’estudi enregistra aquests esdeveniments cardiovasculars en pacients que ingressen a urgències, durant tres anys, els factors de risc, els tractaments a l’ingrés i a l’alta i l’evolució i mortalitat durant l’ingrés. Compararà la població que ens ocupa amb d’altres i els tractaments. Detectarà el seguiment de les guies i circuits de millora.