Trans-Atlantic Pedagogy for Teaching Pre-Service Teachers ICT: Bringing forward cultural issues

Projecte de recerca elaborat a partir d’una estada a la Universitat de Toronto, Canadà, des d’octubre del 2006 a febrer del 2007. El projecte Barchito és un projecte Interrnacional que va involucrar tres universitats: La Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, la Universitat de Toronto (Canadà) i la Universitat de Roosevelt (USA). El seu objectiu principal era posar en contacte estudiants de les tres universitats (de tres cursos diferents) per discutir al voltant de temes com ara l'ensenyament/aprenentatge i elements culturals de cada país. Aquest projecte presenta la natura de l'experiència des de la visió dels participants: alumnat i professorat. Superant diferències inicials de llengua, els participants van aprendre d'altra cultura, van aprendre sobre altres maneres d'ensenyar i van aprendre, en definitiva, sobre ells mateixos. L'eina d'aprenentatge col.laboratiu els va ajudar a sobrepassar el context immediat, emprant per això, l'eina tecnològica anomenada: Knowledge Forum.

The Macroeconomics of the labor market: three fundamental views

We distinguish and assess three fundamental views of the labor market regarding the movements in unempoyment: (i) the frictionless equilibrium view; (ii) the chain reaction theory, or prolonged adjustment view; and (iii) the hysteresis view. While the frictionless view implies a clear compartmentalization between the short- and long-run, the hysteresis view implies that all the short-run fluctuations automatically turn into long-run changes in the unemployment rate. We assert the problems faced by these conceptions in explaining the diversity of labor market experiences across the OECD labor markets. We argue that the prolonged adjustment view can overcome these problems since it implies that the short, medium, and long runs are interrelated, merging with one another along an intertemporal continuum.

Gent que va alçant-se des del fons des segles

Treball de recerca realitzat per un alumne d’ensenyament secundari i guardonat amb un Premi CIRIT per fomentar l'esperit científic del Jovent l’any 2008. A partir de la reconstrucció d’un arbre genealògic es dona una visió dels costums i les relacions socials a Catalunya des del segle XV fins al segle XIX.

Female adolescents' views on a youth-friendly clinic.

OBJECTIVE: To assess satisfaction among female patients of a youth friendly clinic and to determine with which factors this was associated. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in an adolescent clinic in Lausanne, Switzerland, between March and May 2008. All female patients who had made at least one previous visit were eligible. Three hundred and eleven patients aged 12-22 years were included. We performed bivariate analysis to compare satisfied and non-satisfied patients and constructed a log-linear model. RESULTS: Ninety-four percent of patients were satisfied. Satisfied female adolescents were significantly more likely to feel that their complaints were heard, that the caregiver understood their problems, to have no change of physician, to have received the correct treatment/help and to follow the caregiver's advice. The log-linear model highlighted four factors directly linked with patient satisfaction: outcome of care, continuity of care, adherence to treatment and the feeling of being understood. CONCLUSIONS: The main point for female adolescent patient satisfaction lies in a long term, trustworthy relationship with their caregiver. Confidentiality and accessibility were secondary for our patients.

Autoensamblaje dirigido de nanoestructuras de Ce0,9Gd0,1O2-y crecidas por vía química sobre sustratos nanoindentados

En la presente memoria se expone el trabajo realizado en el marco de partículas nanométricas de óxido de cerio (IV) dopado con gadolinio (Ce0,9Gd0,1O2‐y) crecidas por métodos químicos sobre sustratos de tipo perovskita previamente modificados por nanoindentación. El estudio de la influencia de las deformaciones mecánicas del sustrato en la ordenación espontánea de las nanoestructuras nos permitirá poder prever y diseñar sistemas de autoensamblaje asistido y asomarnos al ansiado control en la fabricación de sistemas en el rango nanométrico.

Bioinformática: interfaz gráfica para comparación de genomas vía web

El proyecto consiste en un entorno gráfico cuyo fin es el de visualizar, estudiar e interpretar la conservación de código genético existente entre los diferentes genomas. Una interface que permite cargar hasta ocho genomas para ser comparados en detalle, por pares o entre todos ellos a la vez. El gráfico que se muestra en la interfaz, representa los Maximal Unique Matchings entre cada par de genomas, lo que significa coincidencias de la mayor longitud posible no repetidas, en las secuencias de ADN de las especies comparadas. La finalidad es el estudio de las evoluciones que han ido apareciendo entre diferentes organismos o los genes que comparten unas especies con otras.

Sobre el Art Director. Paradigmas creativos: W. Addison, P. Rand y F. Depero

El present projecte descriu els inicis de la comunicació visual i la importància d’aquesta per els comerços que van néixer a rel de la Revolució Industrial. Analitza el moviment modern i l’aparició de la figura del Art Director als Estats Units en una època liderada per l’Avantguardisme i el Futurisme. S’endinsa en els treballs de tres figures importants en el món del disseny gràfic: William Addison, Paul Rand i Fortunato Depero. L’objectiu d’aquest treball es mostrar la influencia d’aquestes figures en la publicitat.

Some personal views on the control of schistosomiasis mansoni

Our views are based, on a recent study of a district of Uniao dos Palmares (Alagoas). Although being a very compact community (32 city blocks holding two thousand families), transmission is very uneven, the geometric mean egg counts in the various blocks ranging between extremes of 96 and 1920. (Results do not correlate with the availability of domestic water supply). We thus are led to conclude that: (a) transmission is primarily peridomestic, resulting from pollution of open ditches and other collections of water; (b) control of transmission can be done on a selective basis, requiring quite medest investments. Given the inefficacy of population-based chemotherapy, when used alone, the author insists that this alternative cannot any longer be overlooked. He also regrets the emphasis placed upon vaccine development; allegations that this would, at any rate, prevent severe morbidity can be dismissed, since-whatever the cause-morbidity due to schistosomiasis has been rapidly declining in Northeast Brazil.

Interactive Epistemology and Reasoning: On the Foundations of Game Theory

Game theory describes and analyzes strategic interaction. It is usually distinguished between static games, which are strategic situations in which the players choose only once as well as simultaneously, and dynamic games, which are strategic situations involving sequential choices. In addition, dynamic games can be further classified according to perfect and imperfect information. Indeed, a dynamic game is said to exhibit perfect information, whenever at any point of the game every player has full informational access to all choices that have been conducted so far. However, in the case of imperfect information some players are not fully informed about some choices. Game-theoretic analysis proceeds in two steps. Firstly, games are modelled by so-called form structures which extract and formalize the significant parts of the underlying strategic interaction. The basic and most commonly used models of games are the normal form, which rather sparsely describes a game merely in terms of the players' strategy sets and utilities, and the extensive form, which models a game in a more detailed way as a tree. In fact, it is standard to formalize static games with the normal form and dynamic games with the extensive form. Secondly, solution concepts are developed to solve models of games in the sense of identifying the choices that should be taken by rational players. Indeed, the ultimate objective of the classical approach to game theory, which is of normative character, is the development of a solution concept that is capable of identifying a unique choice for every player in an arbitrary game. However, given the large variety of games, it is not at all certain whether it is possible to device a solution concept with such universal capability. Alternatively, interactive epistemology provides an epistemic approach to game theory of descriptive character. This rather recent discipline analyzes the relation between knowledge, belief and choice of game-playing agents in an epistemic framework. The description of the players' choices in a given game relative to various epistemic assumptions constitutes the fundamental problem addressed by an epistemic approach to game theory. In a general sense, the objective of interactive epistemology consists in characterizing existing game-theoretic solution concepts in terms of epistemic assumptions as well as in proposing novel solution concepts by studying the game-theoretic implications of refined or new epistemic hypotheses. Intuitively, an epistemic model of a game can be interpreted as representing the reasoning of the players. Indeed, before making a decision in a game, the players reason about the game and their respective opponents, given their knowledge and beliefs. Precisely these epistemic mental states on which players base their decisions are explicitly expressible in an epistemic framework. In this PhD thesis, we consider an epistemic approach to game theory from a foundational point of view. In Chapter 1, basic game-theoretic notions as well as Aumann's epistemic framework for games are expounded and illustrated. Also, Aumann's sufficient conditions for backward induction are presented and his conceptual views discussed. In Chapter 2, Aumann's interactive epistemology is conceptually analyzed. In Chapter 3, which is based on joint work with Conrad Heilmann, a three-stage account for dynamic games is introduced and a type-based epistemic model is extended with a notion of agent connectedness. Then, sufficient conditions for backward induction are derived. In Chapter 4, which is based on joint work with Jérémie Cabessa, a topological approach to interactive epistemology is initiated. In particular, the epistemic-topological operator limit knowledge is defined and some implications for games considered. In Chapter 5, which is based on joint work with Jérémie Cabessa and Andrés Perea, Aumann's impossibility theorem on agreeing to disagree is revisited and weakened in the sense that possible contexts are provided in which agents can indeed agree to disagree.

40Ar/39Ar dating of Penninic Front tectonic displacement (W Alps) during the Lower Oligocene (31-34 Ma)

Direct absolute dating of the Penninic Frontal Thrust tectonic motion is achieved using the Ar-40/Ar-39 technique in the Pelvoux Crystalline Massif (Western Alps). The dated phengites were formed syn-kinematically in shear zones. They underline the brittle-ductile stretching lineation, pressure-shadow fibres and slickensides consistent with underthrusting of the European continental slab below the propagating Penninic Thrust. Chlorite-phengite thermobarometry yields 10-15 km and T similar to 280 degrees C, while Ar-40/Ar-39 phengite ages mainly range between 34 and 30 Ma, with one younger age at 27 Ma. This Early Oligocene age range matches a major tectonic rearrangement of the Alpine chain. Preservation of prograde Ar-40/Ar-39 ages is ascribed to passive exhumation of the Pelvoux shear zone network, sandwiched between more external thrusts and the Penninic Front reactivated as an E-dipping detachment fault. Partial resetting in the Low Temperature part of argon spectra below 24 Ma is ascribed to brittle deformation and alteration of phengites.

Bioinformática: identificar genes en una interfaz gráfica vía web para la comparación de genomas

Este trabajo desarrolla el proceso de diseño e implementación de una interfaz web que permite la exploración en detalle de las relaciones entre genomas completos. La interfaz permite la comparación simultánea de nueve genomas, representando en cada gráfica las relaciones entre cada par de genomas junto los genes identificados de cada uno de ellos. Es capaz de trabajar con genomas del dominio Eukaryota y se adapta a la capacidad de cómputo de la máquina cliente. La información representada son MUMs (Maximal Unique Matching, secuencia máxima y única encontrada en ambos genomas) y SuperMUMs (agrupación de MUMs mediante Approximate String Matching). Los datos son previamente calculados y accesibles desde un servidor web.

Estimación de las emisiones de CO2 vía GPS

El projecte consisteix en la captura de dades per mitjà del sistema GPS, mitjançant aquestes dades hem d'endevinar en quin vehicle ens desplacem per a portar el càlcul del consum del CO2 dels nostres desplaçaments. El programa ha estat desenvolupat per ser funcional a sobre de dispositius mòbils que tinguin targeta de memòria externa i Java J2ME, inclou interfície gràfica.

Implementación de aplicaciones y herramientas de post-procesamiento de imágenes médicas vía web

Con la creciente generación de resonancias magnéticas, los servicios de radiología necesitan aplicaciones que les faciliten el trabajo de acceso remoto a los datos y a las herramientas que utilicen para la extracción de datos para realizar sus diagnósticos. El objetivo de este proyecto es el de estudiar e integrar en la plataforma web del grupo de Imagen Médica del PIC llamada PICNIC (PIC NeuroImaging Center) un conjunto de aplicaciones para el estudio y procesamiento de neuroimagen con la implementación de herramientas software en la plataforma grid del PIC.