Codificació i transmissió interactiva d'imatges en dispositius mòbils

JPEG2000 és el nou estàndard de compressió d’imatges impulsat pel Joint Photographics Experts Group, el qual defineix un protocol eficient per la transmissió interactiva d’imatges, anomenat JPIP. El Group on Interactive Coding of Images (GICI) té una implementació d’aquest protocol, CADI. En aquest projecte es realitza l’implementació del client d’aquest protocol en un dispositiu mòbil. Per això s’ha realitzat un estudi de les plataformes mòbils que hi ha actualment en el mercat. Finalment s’han proposat millores, en el descodificador, per reduir el temps de computació i la carrega de memòria.

Simulació d'escenaris de xarxa DTN amb NS-2

En aquest projecte es presenta un escenari de xarxa DTN. Aquest escenari té una serie de problemes que dificulten l’encaminament. Al projecte s’ha proposat un protocol d’encaminament que permet superar aquestes dificultats. Per realitzar això ha estat necessari estudiar i adquirir un coneixement profund sobre el funcionament dels protocols de xarxes DTN. Per demostrar que aquesta proposta solucionava els problemes es presenta l’anàlisi dels resultats d’aplicar el protocol a l’escenari, aquests resultats s’han obtingut amb l’eina de simulació de xarxes NS-2.

Videojocs educatius : configuració del perfil del jugador en la plataforma de videojocs educatius K-Pax

Aquest treball presenta una forma de gestionar el perfil dels usuaris de l'aplicació gestora de videojocs educatius en xarxa k-Pax. Paral·lelament al desenvolupament del codi es realitza la documentació de gran part de la plataforma existent, de les accions necessàries per poder tenir-la en mode local i es mostren algunes guies per futurs desenvolupaments.

"Intervenció terapèutica en usuaris TEA (Transtorn Espectre Autista). Intervenció en les àrees curriculars, Intervenció Logopèdica, Intervenció des de la musicoteràpia"

En aquest document es mostra el procés de reflexió i les conclusions del pràcticum II de psicopedagogia. En ell es mostra la intervenció en nens autistes des de la musicoteràpia. Un document que ajuda als lecotors a entendre millor aquests nens i a pensar que noves teràpies i respostes educatives són possibles.

Portfolio delegation under short-selling constraints

In this paper we study delegated portfolio management when themanager's ability to short-sell is restricted. Contrary to previousresults, we show that under moral hazard, linear performance-adjustedcontracts do provide portfolio managers with incentives to gatherinformation. The risk-averse manager's optimal effort is an increasingfunction of her share in the portfolio's return. This result affectsthe risk-averse investor's optimal contract decision. The first best,purely risk-sharing contract is proved to be suboptimal. Usingnumerical methods we show that the manager's share in the portfolioreturn is higher than the rst best share. Additionally, this deviationis shown to be: (i) increasing in the manager's risk aversion and (ii)larger for tighter short-selling restrictions. When the constraint isrelaxed the optimal contract converges towards the first best risksharing contract.

Social capabilities in Alzheimer’s patients

Patients with stage-I (very mild and mild) Alzheimer s disease were asked to participatein a Dictator Game, a type of game in which a subject has to decide how to allocate acertain amount of money between himself and another person. The game enables theexperimenter to examine the influence of social norms and social preferences on thedecision-making process. When the results of treatments involving Alzheimer s diseasepatients were compared with those of identical treatments involving patients with mildcognitive impairment or healthy control subjects, with similar ages and socialbackgrounds, no statistically significant difference was found. This finding suggests thatstage-I Alzheimer s disease patients may be as capable of making decisions involvingsocial norms and preferences as other individuals of their age. Whatever brain structuresare affected by the disease, they do not appear to influence, at this early stage, the neuralbasis for cooperation-enhancing social interactions.

Keeping up with the Joneses: An international asset pricing model

We derive an international asset pricing model that assumes local investorshave preferences of the type "keeping up with the Joneses." In aninternational setting investors compare their current wealth with that oftheir peers who live in the same country. In the process of inferring thecountry's average wealth, investors incorporate information from the domesticmarket portfolio. In equilibrium, this gives rise to a multifactor CAPMwhere, together with the world market price of risk, there existscountry-speciffic prices of risk associated with deviations from thecountry's average wealth level. The model performs signifficantly better, interms of explaining cross-section of returns, than the international CAPM.Moreover, the results are robust, both for conditional and unconditionaltests, to the inclusion of currency risk, macroeconomic sources of risk andthe Fama and French HML factor.

Asset pricing implications of benchmarking: A two-factor CAPM

In this paper we consider the equilibrium effects of an institutionalinvestor whose performance is benchmarked to an index. In a partialequilibrium setting, the objective of the institutional investor is modeledas the maximization of expected utility (an increasing and concave function,in order to accommodate risk aversion) of final wealth minus a benchmark.In equilibrium this optimal strategy gives rise to the two-beta CAPM inBrennan (1993): together with the market beta a new risk-factor (that wecall active management risk) is brought into the analysis. This new betais deffined as the normalized (to the benchmark's variance) covariancebetween the asset excess return and the excess return of the market overthe benchmark index. Different to Brennan, the empirical test supports themodel's predictions. The cross-section return on the active management riskis positive and signifficant especially after 1990, when institutionalinvestors have become the representative agent of the market.

Reduced microwave losses of YBa2Cu3O7_thin films on electro-optic LiNbO3 crystals

We report on the growth of epitaxial YBa2Cu3O7 thin films on X-cut LiNbO3 single crystals. The use of double CeO2/YSZ buffer layers allows a single in-plane orientation of YBa2Cu3O7, and results in superior superconducting properties. In particular, surface resistance Rs values of 1.4 m¿ have been measured at 8 GHz and 65 K. The attainment of such low values of Rs constitutes a key step toward the incorporation of high Tc materials as electrodes in photonic and acoustic devices.

Reduced microwave losses of YBa2Cu3O7_thin films on electro-optic LiNbO3 crystals

We report on the growth of epitaxial YBa2Cu3O7 thin films on X-cut LiNbO3 single crystals. The use of double CeO2/YSZ buffer layers allows a single in-plane orientation of YBa2Cu3O7, and results in superior superconducting properties. In particular, surface resistance Rs values of 1.4 m¿ have been measured at 8 GHz and 65 K. The attainment of such low values of Rs constitutes a key step toward the incorporation of high Tc materials as electrodes in photonic and acoustic devices.

General electromagnetic simulation tool to predict the microwave nonlinear response of planar, arbitrarily-shaped HTS structures

This work describes a simulation tool being developed at UPC to predict the microwave nonlinear behavior of planar superconducting structures with very few restrictions on the geometry of the planar layout. The software is intended to be applicable to most structures used in planar HTS circuits, including line, patch, and quasi-lumped microstrip resonators. The tool combines Method of Moments (MoM) algorithms for general electromagnetic simulation with Harmonic Balance algorithms to take into account the nonlinearities in the HTS material. The Method of Moments code is based on discretization of the Electric Field Integral Equation in Rao, Wilton and Glisson Basis Functions. The multilayer dyadic Green's function is used with Sommerfeld integral formulation. The Harmonic Balance algorithm has been adapted to this application where the nonlinearity is distributed and where compatibility with the MoM algorithm is required. Tests of the algorithm in TM010 disk resonators agree with closed-form equations for both the fundamental and third-order intermodulation currents. Simulations of hairpin resonators show good qualitative agreement with previously published results, but it is found that a finer meshing would be necessary to get correct quantitative results. Possible improvements are suggested.

La práctica médico-quirúrgica en la primera generación del movimiento "novator" a través de las obras de Juan Bautista Juanini (Milán, 1632 - Madrid, 1691): imagen historiográfica, saberes médicos y prácticas quirúrgicas

El objetivo principal de este trabajo es realizar un nuevo acercamiento a la figura histórica, la obra y, en concreto, la práctica médico-quirúrgica de un autor hispanoitaliano de finales del siglo XVII. Nos referimos concretamente al cirujano cortesano Juan Bautista Juanini (Milán, 1632 – Madrid, 1691). Como objetivo secundario se trataría de intentar realizar una nueva presentación biográfica del autor dentro de una recapitulación más general del papel que representó en el contexto de la revolución científica y médica de los países del sur de Europa, y en concreto entre los miembros de la primera generación de "novatores" hispánicos.

Wave competition in excitable modulated media.

The propagation of an initially planar front is studied within the framework of the photosensitive Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction modulated by a smooth spatial variation of the local front velocity in the direction perpendicular to front propagation. Under this modulation, the wave front develops several fingers corresponding to the local maxima of the modulation function. After a transient, the wave front achieves a stationary shape that does not necessarily coincide with the one externally imposed by the modulation. Theoretical predictions for the selection criteria of fingers and steady-state velocity are experimentally validated.