The Tightness of the Cotton Swabs Meshing Influences the Chances of Getting Conclusive DNA Profiles

Objective: The chance of obtaining a conclusive DNA profile strongly depends on the quantity of biological material that can be recovered from a crime scene sample. Optimizing the collection strategy is therefore of prime interest. A difference in the level of tightness of the cotton meshed around the shaft has been observed between manufacturers and is hypothesized to affect the collection and subsequent release capacity of cotton swabs. Consequently, we compared the performance of cotton swabs from two different suppliers: Applimed SA and DryswabTM. Methods: These swabs were used to recover 50 ml of blood, either pure or diluted (1:1000 and 1:5000), deposited on both smooth and absorbent surfaces. Performance was compared in terms of ease of use, concentration of extracted DNA, and quality of DNA profiles. DNA quantification was obtained by real-time PCR using the QuantifilerTM Human DNA Quantification Kit. Evaluation of DNA profiles was based on profiles obtained using AmpFlSTR® NGM SElectTM PCR Amplification kit. Results: When considering smooth surfaces, recovered DNA was more concentrated when using the DryswabTM than the Applimed SA cotton swab. More precisely, DNA concentrations ranged from 15.7 to 28.8 ng/ml and 6.7 to 21.2 ng/ml, respectively for samples of pure blood. The same trend was observed for the absorbent surface, with 2.0 to 5.0 ng/ml and 0.9 to 1.4 ng/ml, respectively. Conclusion: Our results illustrate that different cotton swabs produce different results in terms of ease of use and quantity of recovered DNA and this should be taken into consideration when choosing which swab to use at both the crime scene and laboratory. More specifically, results from the present study suggest that looser meshing of the cotton fibres

A simulation-based algorithm for solving the resource-assignment problem in satellite telecommunication networks

This paper proposes an heuristic for the scheduling of capacity requests and the periodic assignment of radio resources in geostationary (GEO) satellite networks with star topology, using the Demand Assigned Multiple Access (DAMA) protocol in the link layer, and Multi-Frequency Time Division Multiple Access (MF-TDMA) and Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) in the physical layer.

Desenvolupament d'una App d'accés al Campus Virtual de la UOC per a dispositius Android

És objectiu d'aquest projecte dotar la comunitat UOC d'una aplicació per a dispositius Android que proporcioni als usuaris de la comunitat UOC un eina, àgil, còmode i intuïtiva d'accés al Campus Virtual i als recursos formatius que conté.

Desarrollo de una tienda virtual

El siguiente proyecto consiste en el desarrollo de una tienda virtual dedicada a la venta de vino ecológico. El objetivo a grandes rasgos de la tienda virtual no debe ser diferente al de una tienda física. Además de la propia tecnología J2EE, se han utilizado patrones de diseño (MVC), frameworks (Struts2, JavaEmail), contenido web (JSP, CSS) y tratamientos de bases de datos (SQL).

Librería virtual

Este TFC consiste en una aplicación web sobre ASP.NET que gestiona el catálogo de una librería y permite realizar pedidos de libros.

Desenvolupament d'un entorn virtual orientat a la didàctica de la Lògica Computacional i Estructura i Tecnologia de Computadors

En aquesta memòria es presenta el desenvolupament d'un entorn virtual orientat a la didàctica de la lògica proposicional, aplicada en assignatures de Lògica Computacional i Estructura i Tecnologia de Computadors. L'entorn en si té com a objectiu ser un reforç a l'aprenentatge autodidacta per part de l'alumne en aquestes matèries, així com una eina de seguiment per part del professor.

Integració de la memòria virtual i altres funcionalitats en el simulador ESPPADA

Aquest treball explica el funcionament del simulador ESPADDA i les técniques utilitzades. A partir d'aqui l'objectiu es implementar i explicar les noves funcionalitats afegides en el simulador. Aquestes són la integració del subsistema de memoria virtual, l'extensió del simulador cap a un entorn multiprogramat a nivell de tasques locals i tasques paral·leles i la implementació de les neus algorismes de mapping que tenen en compte els recursos limitats de l'estructura del sistema.

Portafoli virtual

El propòsit que es vol assolir amb aquest projecte és la possibilitat de tenir un portafoli virtual de les feines realitzades durant les diverses assignatures, amb una connotació temporal per poder veure l'evolució, millores i aprenentatge que han tingut els alumnes.

Projecte eKnowledge : Desenvolupament i pilotatge d'una eina de fòrum per a donar suport a la construcció col·laborativa de coneixement en el Campus Virtual de la UOC

Informe final del projecte eKnowledge, una eina de fòrums en línia que ofereix a consultors i estudiants la possibilitat de crear espais de comunicació i de col·laboració asíncrona que responguin a diferents finalitats i nivells d'estructuració per part dels docents.

eKnowledge Project: Developing and piloting a forum tool to support the collaborative construction of knowledge on the UOC's Virtual Campus

Final report of the eKnowledge's project, an online forum tool that offers consultants and students the chance to create spaces for asynchronous communication and collaboration.

Proyecto eKnowledge: Desarrollo y pilotaje de una herramienta de foro para apoyar la construcción colaborativa de conocimiento en el Campus Virtual de la UOC

Informe final del proyecto eKnowledge, una herramienta de foros en línea que ofrece a consultores y estudiantes la posbilidad de crear espacios de comunicación y colaboración asíncrona que respondan a diferentes finalidades y niveles de estructuración por parte de los docentes.

The building blocks of international ecological footprint inequality: a regression-based decomposition

This paper performs an empirical Decomposition of International Inequality in Ecological Footprint in order to quantify to what extent explanatory variables such as a country’s affluence, economic structure, demographic characteristics, climate and technology contributed to international differences in terms of natural resource consumption during the period 1993-2007. We use a Regression-Based Inequality Decomposition approach. As a result, the methodology extends qualitatively the results obtained in standard environmental impact regressions as it comprehends further social dimensions of the Sustainable Development concept, i.e. equity within generations. The results obtained point to prioritizing policies that take into account both future and present generations.

Tree-based message diffusion for managing replicated data in unreliable and resource-constrained peer-to-peer environment

Abstract This thesis proposes a set of adaptive broadcast solutions and an adaptive data replication solution to support the deployment of P2P applications. P2P applications are an emerging type of distributed applications that are running on top of P2P networks. Typical P2P applications are video streaming, file sharing, etc. While interesting because they are fully distributed, P2P applications suffer from several deployment problems, due to the nature of the environment on which they perform. Indeed, defining an application on top of a P2P network often means defining an application where peers contribute resources in exchange for their ability to use the P2P application. For example, in P2P file sharing application, while the user is downloading some file, the P2P application is in parallel serving that file to other users. Such peers could have limited hardware resources, e.g., CPU, bandwidth and memory or the end-user could decide to limit the resources it dedicates to the P2P application a priori. In addition, a P2P network is typically emerged into an unreliable environment, where communication links and processes are subject to message losses and crashes, respectively. To support P2P applications, this thesis proposes a set of services that address some underlying constraints related to the nature of P2P networks. The proposed services include a set of adaptive broadcast solutions and an adaptive data replication solution that can be used as the basis of several P2P applications. Our data replication solution permits to increase availability and to reduce the communication overhead. The broadcast solutions aim, at providing a communication substrate encapsulating one of the key communication paradigms used by P2P applications: broadcast. Our broadcast solutions typically aim at offering reliability and scalability to some upper layer, be it an end-to-end P2P application or another system-level layer, such as a data replication layer. Our contributions are organized in a protocol stack made of three layers. In each layer, we propose a set of adaptive protocols that address specific constraints imposed by the environment. Each protocol is evaluated through a set of simulations. The adaptiveness aspect of our solutions relies on the fact that they take into account the constraints of the underlying system in a proactive manner. To model these constraints, we define an environment approximation algorithm allowing us to obtain an approximated view about the system or part of it. This approximated view includes the topology and the components reliability expressed in probabilistic terms. To adapt to the underlying system constraints, the proposed broadcast solutions route messages through tree overlays permitting to maximize the broadcast reliability. Here, the broadcast reliability is expressed as a function of the selected paths reliability and of the use of available resources. These resources are modeled in terms of quotas of messages translating the receiving and sending capacities at each node. To allow a deployment in a large-scale system, we take into account the available memory at processes by limiting the view they have to maintain about the system. Using this partial view, we propose three scalable broadcast algorithms, which are based on a propagation overlay that tends to the global tree overlay and adapts to some constraints of the underlying system. At a higher level, this thesis also proposes a data replication solution that is adaptive both in terms of replica placement and in terms of request routing. At the routing level, this solution takes the unreliability of the environment into account, in order to maximize reliable delivery of requests. At the replica placement level, the dynamically changing origin and frequency of read/write requests are analyzed, in order to define a set of replica that minimizes communication cost.

PoolStore : Supermercado virtual de productos de piscina con códigos QR

El proyecto denominado 'Supermercado virtual de productos de piscina con códigos QR en Android' pretende generar una serie de lineales con las fotografías de los diferentes productos con los precios y asociarlos a su código QR.

Grupos de discussão virtual: uma proposta para o ensino em enfermagem

Este trabalho descreve uma experiência docente que teve como objetivo proporcionar interatividade à técnica do diário de campo, utilizando um ambiente virtual de aprendizagem. A proposta educacional teve como origem o Estágio de Docência, vinculado ao Programa de Pós-Graduação Stricto Sensu em Enfermagem da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), no qual a mestranda, supervisionada pela sua orientadora, propôs a formação de grupos de discussão virtual para realizar o diário de campo em uma disciplina da graduação em enfermagem, visando a oportunizar a discussão conjunta das vivências acadêmicas em campo de prática. Os professores da disciplina na qual a proposta foi desenvolvida também estiveram inseridos nas atividades. A tecnologia virtual dinamizou a técnica de diário de campo, permitindo a troca de experiências entre os acadêmicos, o professor e a mestranda, assim como momentos de reflexão e discussão acerca dos temas confrontados na prática da enfermagem.