Analysis and selection of indicators for a sustainability assessment method for school buildings based on SBTool ‐ PT

Nowadays, the sustainability of buildings has an extreme importance. This concept goes towards the European aims of the Program Horizon 2020, which concerns about the reduction of the environmental impacts through such aspects as the energy efficiency and renewable technologies, among others. Sustainability is an extremely broad concept but, in this work, it is intended to include the concept of sustainability in buildings. Within the concept that aims the integration of environmental, social and economic levels towards the preservation of the planet and the integrity of the users, there are, currently, several types of tools of environmental certification that are applicable to the construction industry (LEED, BREEAM, DGNB, SBTool, among others). Within this context, it is highlighted the tool SBTool (Sustainable Building Tool) that is employed in several countries and can be subject to review in institutions of basic education, which are the base for the formation of the critical masses and for the development of a country. The main aim of this research is to select indicators that can be used in a methodology for sustainability assessment (SBTool) of school buildings in Portugal and in Brazil. In order to achieve it, it will also be analyzed other methodologies that already incorporate parameters directly related with the schools environment, such as BREEAM or LEED.

BIOMedical search engine framework: lightweight and customized implementation of domain-specific biomedical search engines

The Smart Drug Search is publicly accessible at http://sing.ei.uvigo.es/sds/. The BIOMedical Search Engine Framework is freely available for non-commercial use at https://github.com/agjacome/biomsef

Critical events in mechanically ventilated patients

Mechanical Ventilation is an artificial way to help a Patient to breathe. This procedure is used to support patients with respiratory diseases however in many cases it can provoke lung damages, Acute Respiratory Diseases or organ failure. With the goal to early detect possible patient breath problems a set of limit values was defined to some variables monitored by the ventilator (Average Ventilation Pressure, Compliance Dynamic, Flow, Peak, Plateau and Support Pressure, Positive end-expiratory pressure, Respiratory Rate) in order to create critical events. A critical event is verified when a patient has a value higher or lower than the normal range defined for a certain period of time. The values were defined after elaborate a literature review and meeting with physicians specialized in the area. This work uses data streaming and intelligent agents to process the values collected in real-time and classify them as critical or not. Real data provided by an Intensive Care Unit were used to design and test the solution. In this study it was possible to understand the importance of introduce critical events for Mechanically Ventilated Patients. In some cases a value is considered critical (can trigger an alarm) however it is a single event (instantaneous) and it has not a clinical significance for the patient. The introduction of critical events which crosses a range of values and a pre-defined duration contributes to improve the decision-making process by decreasing the number of false positives and having a better comprehension of the patient condition.

Communications with QoS in IoT&Cloud environment

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia de Telecomunicações e Informática

Gestor intel·ligent d'assignació de recursos

Aquest projecte és una eina per a la gestió avançada del Comitè Tècnic d’Àrbitres de Futbol Sala de Catalunya. Creant una base de dades forta i robusta com la que ens proporciona la tecnologia ORACLE, i agafant APEX com a gestor de continguts de la base de dades, hem creat una aplicació per realitzar l'assignació d'arbitratges i altres recursos d'una manera intel·ligent i equitativa.

Genetics of Parkinson disease and essential tremor.

Purpose of review: Elucidating the genetic background of Parkinson disease and essential tremor is crucial to understand the pathogenesis and improve diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Recent findings: A number of approaches have been applied including familial and association studies, and studies of gene expression profiles to identify genes involved in susceptibility to Parkinson disease. These studies have nominated a number of candidate Parkinson disease genes and novel loci including Omi/HtrA2, GIGYF2, FGF20, PDXK, EIF4G1 and PARK16. A recent notable finding has been the confirmation for the role of heterozygous mutations in glucocerebrosidase (GBA) as risk factors for Parkinson disease. Finally, association studies have nominated genetic variation in the leucine-rich repeat and Ig containing 1 gene (LINGO1) as a risk for both Parkinson disease and essential tremor, providing the first genetic evidence of a link between the two conditions. Summary: Although undoubtedly genes remain to be identified, considerable progress has been achieved in the understanding of the genetic basis of Parkinson disease. This same effort is now required for essential tremor. The use of next-generation high-throughput sequencing and genotyping technologies will help pave the way for future insight leading to advances in diagnosis, prevention and cure.

Productivity in southern European small firms: When and how work organization complements process innovation

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of human capital, advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT), and new work organizational practices on firm productivity, while taking into account the synergies existing between them. This study expands current knowledge in this area in two ways. First, in contrast with previous works, we focus on AMT and not ICT (information and communication technologies). Second, we use a unique employer-employee data set for small firms in a particular area of southern Europe (Catalonia, Spain). Using a small firm data set, allows us to analyse the particular case of small and medium enterprises, since we cannot assume they have the same characteristics as large firms. The results provide evidence in favor of the complementarity hypothesis between human capital, advanced manufacturing technologies, and new work organization practices, although we show that the complementarity effects depend on what type of work organization practices are used by a firm. For small and medium Catalan firms, the only set of work organization practices that improve the benefits of human capital and technology investment are those practices which are more quality oriented, such as quality circles, problem-solving groups or total quality management.

Does VAA popularity pay off ? : Smartvote users preferred candidates and their results in the 2007 Swiss federal elections

Voting is fundamental for democracy, however, this decisive democratic act requires quite an effort. Decision making at elections depends largely on the interest to gather information about candidates and parties, the effort to process the information at hand and the motivation to reach a vote choice. Especially in electoral systems with highly fragmented party systems and hundreds of candidates running for office, the process of decision making in the pre‐election sphere is highly demanding. In the age of information and communication technologies, new possibilities for gathering and processing such information are available. Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) provide guidance to voters prior to the act of voting and assist voters in choosing between different candidates and parties on the basis of issue congruence. Meanwhile widely used all over the world, scientific inquiry into the effect of such tools on electoral behavior is ongoing. This paper adds to the current debate by focusing on whether the popularity of candidates on the Swiss VAA smartvote eventually paid off at the 2007 Swiss federal elections and whether there is a direct link between the performance of a candidate on the tool and his or her electoral performance.

Street-Level Bureaucracy and E-Government

With the intensive use of information and communication technologies, governments are transforming into e-governments. While public management research has given increased attention to this subject lately, this article reviews the limited literature that deals with the impacts of e-government technologies on street-level bureaucracies. A twofold argument is being developed. First, what can be called the 'curtailment thesis', stressing the reduction or disappearance of frontline policy discretion, is addressed. Second, the 'enablement thesis' gets attention, highlighting how technologies provide frontline workers and citizens with additional action resources. The article concludes with propositions for a future research agenda on the topic.

Disseny i implementació d'un sistema de gestió intel·ligent per una biblioteca

El projecte consisteix a crear una base de dades per a una biblioteca, que gestioni de forma òptima i intel·ligent els préstecs dels seus recursos. Per a això s'utilitza la base de dades Oracle, utilitzant SQL i PL/SQL i dissenyarem l'esmentada base de dades de manera que no estigui tancada per a una única interfície, i que s'incloguin totes les informacions requerides i preparades per a possibles canvis en un futur

Migration and information flows. A new lens for the study of contemporary international migration

Aquest document de treball mira d'establir un nou camp d'investigació a la cruïlla entre els fluxos de migració i d'informació i comunicació. Hi ha diversos factors que fan que valgui la pena adoptar aquesta perspectiva. El punt central és que la migració internacional contemporània és incrustada en la dinàmica de la societat de la informació, seguint models comuns i dinàmiques interconnectades. Per consegüent, s'està començant a identificar els fluxos d'informació com a qüestions clau en les polítiques de migració. A més, hi ha una manca de coneixement empíric en el disseny de xarxes d'informació i l'ús de les tecnologies d'informació i comunicació en contextos migratoris. Aquest document de treball també mira de ser una font d'hipòtesis per a investigacions posteriors.

Internet and the Catalan Universities Network. Research report (synthesis document)

El desenvolupament de les tecnologies de la informació i la comunicació (TIC) durant els darrers quaranta anys del segle XX i la seva incorporació en els diferents àmbits de l'activitat humana ens porten a plantejar-nos, al començament del segle XXI, quines són les transformacions profundes que acompanyen aquests fets i quines són les conseqüències que, com a mínim a curt termini, comporten. El focus d'aquest projecte és l'anàlisi dels processos de transformació de la vida acadèmica universitària en l'àmbit català, la seva vinculació amb la realitat actual i les repercussions que els processos esmentats tenen en la societat en general. De manera més específica, l'objectiu és, en primer lloc, explorar amb una perspectiva global la incorporació d'Internet a les universitats catalanes i, en segon lloc, analitzar els processos de canvi que aquest fet comporta en els processos de formació i recerca de la Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV). Aquest informe presenta els resultats de tres estudis concrets, cadascun dels quals té uns objectius, una metodologia i una discussió particulars: Configuració de la xarxa d'universitats catalanes: connexió física i projectes compartits, Presència de les universitats catalanes a Internet, i Estudi de cas: la URV.

The NF-κB signaling protein Bcl10 regulates actin dynamics by controlling AP1 and OCRL-bearing vesicles.

The protein Bcl10 contributes to adaptive and innate immunity through the assembly of a signaling complex that plays a key role in antigen receptor and FcR-induced NF-κB activation. Here we demonstrate that Bcl10 has an NF-κB-independent role in actin and membrane remodeling downstream of FcR in human macrophages. Depletion of Bcl10 impaired Rac1 and PI3K activation and led to an abortive phagocytic cup rich in PI(4,5)P(2), Cdc42, and F-actin, which could be rescued with low doses of F-actin depolymerizing drugs. Unexpectedly, we found Bcl10 in a complex with the clathrin adaptors AP1 and EpsinR. In particular, Bcl10 was required to locally deliver the vesicular OCRL phosphatase that regulates PI(4,5)P(2) and F-actin turnover, both crucial for the completion of phagosome closure. Thus, we identify Bcl10 as an early coordinator of NF-κB-mediated immune response with endosomal trafficking and signaling to F-actin remodeling.

Intelligent task-level grasp mapping for robot control

In the future, robots will enter our everyday lives to help us with various tasks.For a complete integration and cooperation with humans, these robots needto be able to acquire new skills. Sensor capabilities for navigation in real humanenvironments and intelligent interaction with humans are some of the keychallenges.Learning by demonstration systems focus on the problem of human robotinteraction, and let the human teach the robot by demonstrating the task usinghis own hands. In this thesis, we present a solution to a subproblem within thelearning by demonstration field, namely human-robot grasp mapping. Robotgrasping of objects in a home or office environment is challenging problem.Programming by demonstration systems, can give important skills for aidingthe robot in the grasping task.The thesis presents two techniques for human-robot grasp mapping, directrobot imitation from human demonstrator and intelligent grasp imitation. Inintelligent grasp mapping, the robot takes the size and shape of the object intoconsideration, while for direct mapping, only the pose of the human hand isavailable.These are evaluated in a simulated environment on several robot platforms.The results show that knowing the object shape and size for a grasping taskimproves the robot precision and performance