Protected maleimide building blocks for the decoration of peptides, peptoids and peptide nucleic acids

Monomers allowing for the introduction of [2,5-dimethylfuran]-protected maleimides into polyamides such as peptides, peptide nucleic acids, and peptoids were prepared, as well as the corresponding oligomers. Suitable maleimide deprotection conditions were established in each case. The stability of the adducts generated by Michael-type maleimide-thiol reaction and Diels-Alder cycloaddition to maleimide deprotection conditions was exploited to prepare a variety of conjugates from peptide and PNA scaffolds incorporating one free and one protected maleimide. The target molecules were synthesized by using two subsequent maleimide-involving click reactions separated by a maleimide deprotection step. Carrying out maleimide deprotection and conjugation simultaneously gave better results than performing the two reactions subsequently.

Shared feature extraction for nearest neighbor face recognition

In this paper, we propose a new supervised linearfeature extraction technique for multiclass classification problemsthat is specially suited to the nearest neighbor classifier (NN).The problem of finding the optimal linear projection matrix isdefined as a classification problem and the Adaboost algorithmis used to compute it in an iterative way. This strategy allowsthe introduction of a multitask learning (MTL) criterion in themethod and results in a solution that makes no assumptions aboutthe data distribution and that is specially appropriated to solvethe small sample size problem. The performance of the methodis illustrated by an application to the face recognition problem.The experiments show that the representation obtained followingthe multitask approach improves the classic feature extractionalgorithms when using the NN classifier, especially when we havea few examples from each class

A Sparse Bayesian Approach for Joint Feature Selection and Classifier Learning

Peer-reviewed

A Hierarchical Approach for Multi-task Logistic Regression

Peer-reviewed

Mejoremos los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje mediante la investigación-acción

La investigación “Procesos de E-A en las escuelas La Bressola”, surge de la propuesta de los miembros del proyecto INTERREG III-A La Bressola-Universidad de Girona, de llevar a cabo una I-A a partir de los procesos de E-A en las escuelas La Bressola. Esta I-A no ha surgido de los mismos profesionales de La Bressola, sino que ha sido este agente externo quien ha presentado la propuesta y ha pedido su colaboración.Se han identificado los procesos de E-A que han favorecido la obtención de resultados exitosos, y ha sido a partir de éstos que se han establecido los elementos comunes para poderlos compartir, mejorando así la práctica educativa. El uso de una metodología cualitativa, durante el proceso de I-A, permite profundizar en los éxitos analizados, si bien en algún caso nos hemos encontrado que un mismo éxito se podría describir con matices diferentes. Con esta investigación se consigue que los docentes realicen una mayor reflexión sobre la práctica que llevan a cabo de manera espontánea y natural, así como el descubrimiento de recursos, procedimientos e instrumentos valiosos para incorporar en su docencia

Preparation of penta-azole containing cyclopeptides: challenges in macrocyclization

Herein is described the synthesis of several analogs of the natural product IB-01211 from concatenated azoles, via a biomimetic pathway based on cyclization-oxidation of serine containing peptides combined with the Hantzsch synthesis. The macrocyclization of rigid peptide compounds 1 and 2 to give IB-01211 and its epimer 12b was explored, and the results are compared here to those previously obtained for the macrocyclization of more flexible structures in the syntheses of YM-216391, telomestatin, and IB-01211. Lastly, the preliminary results of anti-tumor activity screening of the synthesized analogs are discussed.

Ouranós-Gaia. L’espai a Grècia III: anomenar l’espai

Aquesta obra recull les aportacions del III Col·loqui internacional sobre la concepció de l'espai a Grècia "Cel i Terra: anomenar l'espai a Grècia", coorganitzat per la Societat Catalana d'Estudis Clàssics (filial de l’Institut d’Estudis Catalans) i l'ICAC i que va tenir lloc els dies 29 i 30 de novembre del 2010. Es tracta del tercer volum sobre la concepció de l’espai a Grècia editat pel grup de recerca “L’espai segons el veien i el pensaven els grecs”.

Regulating Concessions of Toll Motorways, An Empirical Study on Fixed vs. Variable Term Contracts

Recent theoretical developments on concession contracts for long term infrastructure projects under uncertain demand show the benefits of allowing for flexible term contracts rather than fixing a rigid term. This study presents a simulation to compare both alternatives by using real data from the oldest Spanish toll motorway. For this purpose, we analyze how well the flexible term would have performed instead of the fixed length actually established. Our results show a huge reduction of the term of concession that would have dramatically decreased the firm’s benefits and the user’s overpayment due to the internalization of an unexpected traffic increase.