A model for evaluation of generic competences in engineering: application to the problem-solving competence at UPM.

The competence evaluation promoted by the European High Education Area entails a very important methodological change that requires guiding support to help teachers carry out this new and complex task. In this regard, the Technical University of Madrid (UPM, by its Spanish acronym) has financed a series of coordinated projects with a two-fold objective: a) To develop a model for teaching and evaluating core competences that is useful and easily applicable to its different degrees, and b) to provide support to teachers by creating an area within the Website for Educational Innovation where they can search for information on the model corresponding to each core competence approved by UPM. Information available on each competence includes its definition, the formulation of indicators providing evidence on the level of acquisition, the recommended teaching and evaluation methodology, examples of evaluation rules for the different levels of competence acquisition, and descriptions of best practices. These best practices correspond to pilot tests applied to several of the academic subjects conducted at UPM in order to validate the model. This work describes the general procedure that was used and presents the model developed specifically for the problem-solving competence. Some of the pilot experiences are also summarised and their results analysed

Automatic compile-time parallelization of logic programs for restricted, goal-level, independent and-parallelism.

A framework for the automatic parallelization of (constraint) logic programs is proposed and proved correct. Intuitively, the parallelization process replaces conjunctions of literals with parallel expressions. Such expressions trigger at run-time the exploitation of restricted, goal-level, independent and-parallelism. The parallelization process performs two steps. The first one builds a conditional dependency graph (which can be implified using compile-time analysis information), while the second transforms the resulting graph into linear conditional expressions, the parallel expressions of the &-Prolog language. Several heuristic algorithms for the latter ("annotation") process are proposed and proved correct. Algorithms are also given which determine if there is any loss of parallelism in the linearization process with respect to a proposed notion of maximal parallelism. Finally, a system is presented which implements the proposed approach. The performance of the different annotation algorithms is compared experimentally in this system by studying the time spent in parallelization and the effectiveness of the results in terms of speedups.

High-level characteristics of or-and independent and-parallelism in prolog

Although studies of a number of parallel implementations of logic programming languages are now available, their results are difficult to interpret due to the multiplicity of factors involved, the effect of each of which is difficult to sepárate. In this paper we present the results of a high-level simulation study of or- and independent and-parallelism with a wide selection of Prolog programs that aims to determine the intrinsic amount of parallelism, independently of implementation factors, thus facilitating this separation. We expect this study will be instrumental in better understanding and comparing results from actual implementations, as shown by some examples provided in the paper. In addition, the paper examines some of the issues and tradeoffs associated with the combination of and- and or-parallelism and proposes reasonable solutions based on the simulation data obtained.

High-level languages for small devices: A case study

In this paper we study, through a concrete case, the feasibility of using a high-level, general-purpose logic language in the design and implementation of applications targeting wearable computers. The case study is a "sound spatializer" which, given real-time signáis for monaural audio and heading, generates stereo sound which appears to come from a position in space. The use of advanced compile-time transformations and optimizations made it possible to execute code written in a clear style without efñciency or architectural concerns on the target device, while meeting strict existing time and memory constraints. The final executable compares favorably with a similar implementation written in C. We believe that this case is representative of a wider class of common pervasive computing applications, and that the techniques we show here can be put to good use in a range of scenarios. This points to the possibility of applying high-level languages, with their associated flexibility, conciseness, ability to be automatically parallelized, sophisticated compile-time tools for analysis and verification, etc., to the embedded systems field without paying an unnecessary performance penalty.

A generator of efficient abstract machine implementations and its application to emulator minimization

The implementation of abstract machines involves complex decisions regarding, e.g., data representation, opcodes, or instruction specialization levéis, all of which affect the final performance of the emulator and the size of the bytecode programs in ways that are often difficult to foresee. Besides, studying alternatives by implementing abstract machine variants is a time-consuming and error-prone task because of the level of complexity and optimization of competitive implementations, which makes them generally difficult to understand, maintain, and modify. This also makes it hard to genérate specific implementations for particular purposes. To ameliorate those problems, we propose a systematic approach to the automatic generation of implementations of abstract machines. Different parts of their definition (e.g., the instruction set or the infernal data and bytecode representation) are kept sepárate and automatically assembled in the generation process. Alternative versions of the abstract machine are therefore easier to produce, and variants of their implementation can be created mechanically, with specific characteristics for a particular application if necessary. We illustrate the practicality of the approach by reporting on an implementation of a generator of production-quality WAMs which are specialized for executing a particular fixed (set of) program(s). The experimental results show that the approach is effective in reducing emulator size.

Towards high-level execution primitives for and-parallelism: preliminary results

Most implementations of parallel logic programming rely on complex low-level machinery which is arguably difflcult to implement and modify. We explore an alternative approach aimed at taming that complexity by raising core parts of the implementation to the source language level for the particular case of and-parallelism. Therefore, we handle a signiflcant portion of the parallel implementation mechanism at the Prolog level with the help of a comparatively small number of concurrency-related primitives which take care of lower-level tasks such as locking, thread management, stack set management, etc. The approach does not eliminate altogether modiflcations to the abstract machine, but it does greatly simplify them and it also facilitates experimenting with different alternatives. We show how this approach allows implementing both restricted and unrestricted (i.e., non fork-join) parallelism. Preliminary experiments show that the amount of performance sacriflced is reasonable, although granularity control is required in some cases. Also, we observe that the availability of unrestricted parallelism contributes to better observed speedups.

Towards a high-level implementation of flexible parallelism primitives for symbolic languages

An abstract is not available.

Reversible language extensions and their application in debugging

A range of methodologies and techniques are available to guide the design and implementation of language extensions and domainspecific languages. A simple yet powerful technique is based on source-tosource transformations interleaved across the compilation passes of a base language. Despite being a successful approach, it has the main drawback that the input source code is lost in the process. When considering the whole workflow of program development (warning and error reporting, debugging, or even program analysis), program translations are no more powerful than a glorified macro language. In this paper, we propose an augmented approach to language extensions for Prolog, where symbolic annotations are included in the target program. These annotations allow selectively reversing the translated code. We illustrate the approach by showing that coupling it with minimal extensions to a generic Prolog debugger allows us to provide users with a familiar, source-level view during the debugging of programs which use a variety of language extensions, such as functional notation, DCGs, or CLP{Q,R}.

A level II reliability approach to tunnel support design

A reliability approach to tunnel support design is presented in this paper. The aim of the work is the incorporation of classical Level II techniques to the current design method based on the study of the ground-support interaction diagram.

QL-CONST1: an expert system for quality level prediction in concrete structures

Current trends in the fields of artifical intelligence and expert systems are moving towards the exciting possibility of reproducing and simulating human expertise and expert behaviour into a knowledge base, coupled with an appropriate, partially ‘intelligent’, computer code. This paper deals with the quality level prediction in concrete structures using the helpful assistance of an expert system, QL-CONST1, which is able to reason about this specific field of structural engineering. Evidence, hypotheses and factors related to this human knowledge field have been codified into a knowledge base. This knowledge base has been prepared in terms of probabilities of the presence of either hypotheses or evidence and the conditional presence of both. Human experts in the fields of structural engineering and the safety of structures gave their invaluable knowledge and assistance to the construction of the knowledge base. Some illustrative examples for, the validation of the expert system behaviour are included.

Three-level cell topology for a multilevel power supply to achieve High

This paper presents an envelope amplifier solution for envelope elimination and restoration (EER), that consists of a series combination of a switch-mode power supply (SMPS), based on three-level voltage cells and a linear regulator. This cell topology offers several advantages over a previously presented envelope amplifier based on a different multilevel topology (two-level voltage cells). The topology of the multilevel converter affects to the whole design of the envelope amplifier and a comparison between both design alternatives regarding the size, complexity and the efficiency of the solution is done. Both envelope amplifier solutions have a bandwidth of 2 MHz with an instantaneous maximum power of 50 W. It is also analyzed the linearity of the three-level cell solution, with critical importance in the EER technique implementation. Additionally, considerations to optimize the design of the envelope amplifier and experimental comparison between both cell topologies are included.

Effect of the oxygen isoelectronic substitution in Cu2ZnSnS4 and its photovoltaic application

The optoelectronic properties of Cu2ZnSnS4 and environmental considerations have attracted significant interest for photovoltaics. Using first-principles, we analyze the possible improvement of this material as a photovoltaic absorber via the isoelectronic substitution of S with O atoms. The evolution of the acceptor level is analyzed with respect to the atomic position of the nearest neighbors of the O atom. We estimate the maximum efficiency of this compound when used as a light absorber. The presence of the sub-band gap level below the conduction band could increases the solar-energy conversion with respect to the host.

Photovoltaic application of O-doped Wittichenite-Cu 3 BiS 3: from microscopic properties to maximum efficiencies

The electronic properties and the low environmental impact of Cu 3 BiS 3 make this compound a promising material for low-cost thin film solar cell technology. From the first principles, the electronic properties of the isoelectronic substitution of S by O in Cu 3 BiS 3 have been obtained using two different exchange-correlation potentials. This compound has an acceptor level below the conduction band, which modifies the opto-electronic properties with respect to the host semiconductor. In order to analyze a possible efficiency increment with respect to the host semiconductor, we have calculated the maximum efficiency of this photovoltaic absorber material.

The Learning of the Mathematical Models to Aid Decision Making in the High Level Engineering Schools?

At present, in the University curricula in most countries, the decision theory and the mathematical models to aid decision making is not included, as in the graduate program like in Doctored and Master´s programs. In the Technical School of High Level Agronomic Engineers of the Technical University of Madrid (ETSIA-UPM), the need to offer to the future engineers training in a subject that could help them to take decisions in their profession was felt. Along the life, they will have to take a lot of decisions. Ones, will be important and others no. In the personal level, they will have to take several very important decisions, like the election of a career, professional work, or a couple, but in the professional field, the decision making is the main role of the Managers, Politicians and Leaders. They should be decision makers and will be paid for it. Therefore, nobody can understand that such a professional that is called to practice management responsibilities in the companies, does not take training in such an important matter. For it, in the year 2000, it was requested to the University Board to introduce in the curricula an optional qualified subject of the second cycle with 4,5 credits titled " Mathematical Methods for Making Decisions ". A program was elaborated, the didactic material prepared and programs as Maple, Lingo, Math Cad, etc. installed in several IT classrooms, where the course will be taught. In the course 2000-2001 this subject was offered with a great acceptance that exceeded the forecasts of capacity and had to be prepared more classrooms. This course in graduate program took place in the Department of Applied Mathematics to the Agronomic Engineering, as an extension of the credits dedicated to Mathematics in the career of Engineering.

Application of protection means against explosions in underground mines

Underground coal mines explosions generally arise from the inflammation of a methane/air mixture. This explosion can also generate a subsequent coal dust explosion. Traditionally such explosions have being fought eliminating one or several of the factors needed by the explosion to take place. Although several preventive measures are taken to prevent explosions, other measures should be considered to reduce the effects or even to extinguish the flame front. Unlike other protection methods that remove one or two of the explosion triangle elements, namely; the ignition source, the oxidizing agent and the fuel, explosion barriers removes all of them: reduces the quantity of coal in suspension, cools the flame front and the steam generated by vaporization removes the oxygen present in the flame. The present paper is essentially based on the comprehensive state-of–the-art of Protective Systems in underground coal mines, and particularly on the application of Explosion Barriers to improve safety level in Spanish coal mining industry. After an exhaustive study of series EN 14591 standards covering explosion prevention and protection in underground mines, authors have proven explosion barriers effectiveness in underground galleries by Full Scale Tests performed in Polish Barbara experimental mine, showing that the barriers can reduce the effects of methane and/or flammable coal dust explosions to a satisfactory safety level.