A new surface joining technique for the design of shoe lasts

The footwear industry is a traditional craft sector, where technological advances are difficult to implement owing to the complexity of the processes being carried out, and the level of precision demanded by most of them. The shoe last joining operation is one clear example, where two halves from different lasts are put together, following a specifically traditional process, to create a new one. Existing surface joining techniques analysed in this paper are not well adapted to shoe last design and production processes, which makes their implementation in the industry difficult. This paper presents an alternative surface joining technique, inspired by the traditional work of lastmakers. This way, lastmakers will be able to easily adapt to the new tool and make the most out of their know-how. The technique is based on the use of curve networks that are created on the surfaces to be joined, instead of using discrete data. Finally, a series of joining tests are presented, in which real lasts were successfully joined using a commercial last design software. The method has shown to be valid, efficient, and feasible within the sector.

How does family intervention improve the outcome of people with schizophrenia?

Background: There is strong evidence of the efficacy of family psychosocial interventions for schizophrenia, but evidence of the role played by the attitudes of relatives in the therapeutic process is lacking. Method: To study the effect of a family intervention on family attitudes and to analyse their mediating role in the therapeutic process 50 patients with schizophrenia and their key relatives undergoing a trial on the efficacy of a family psychosocial intervention were studied by means of the Affective Style Coding System, the Scale of Empathy, and the Relational Control Coding System. Specific statistical methods were used to determine the nature of the relationship of the relatives’ attitudes to the outcome of family intervention. Results: Family psychosocial intervention was associated with a reduction in relatives’ guilt induction and dominance and an improvement in empathy. Empathy and lack of dominance were identified as independent mediators of the effect of family psychosocial intervention. The change in empathy and dominance during the first 9 months of the intervention predicted the outcome in the following 15 months. Conclusion: Relatives’ empathy and lack of dominance are mediators of the beneficial effect of family psychosocial intervention on patient’s outcome.

Community attributes determine facilitation potential in a semi-arid steppe

Studies on positive plant–plant relations have traditionally focused on pair-wise interactions. Conversely, the interaction with other co-occurring species has scarcely been addressed, despite the fact that the entire community may affect plant performance. We used woody vegetation patches as models to evaluate community facilitation in semi-arid steppes. We characterized biotic and physical attributes of 53 woody patches (patch size, litter accumulation, canopy density, vegetation cover, species number and identity, and phylogenetic distance), and soil fertility (organic C and total N), and evaluated their relative importance for the performance of seedlings of Pistacia lentiscus, a keystone woody species in western Mediterranean steppes. Seedlings were planted underneath the patches, and on their northern and southern edges. Woody patches positively affected seedling survival but not seedling growth. Soil fertility was higher underneath the patches than elsewhere. Physical and biotic attributes of woody patches affected seedling survival, but these effects depended on microsite conditions. The composition of the community of small shrubs and perennial grasses growing underneath the patches controlled seedling performance. An increase in Stipa tenacissima and a decrease in Brachypodium retusum increased the probability of survival. The cover of these species and other small shrubs, litter depth and community phylogenetic distance, were also related to seedling survival. Seedlings planted on the northern edge of the patches were mostly affected by attributes of the biotic community. These traits were of lesser importance in seedlings planted underneath and in the southern edge of patches, suggesting that constraints to seedling establishment differed within the patches. Our study highlights the importance of taking into consideration community attributes over pair-wise interactions when evaluating the outcome of ecological interactions in multi-specific communities, as they have profound implications in the composition, function and management of semi-arid steppes.

Effect of the surface chemical groups of activated carbons on their surface adsorptivity to aromatic adsorbates based on π-π interactions

Three activated carbons with different surface chemical groups were used to analyse the influence of these groups on their adsorption capacities towards aromatic-type molecules whose adsorption is based on π-π interactions with surface arene centres. The three activated carbons studied were a low-functionalized carbon (Merck), an oxygen-rich carbon obtained by HNO3 oxidation of Merck, and a nitrogen-rich carbon also prepared from Merck by mild HNO3 oxidation followed by treatment with a dicyanodiamide/dimethyl formamide mixture at 300 °C. The nature of the surface chemical groups of the three activated carbons was investigated by both physical and chemical techniques (TPD, XPS, Boehm analysis and pH potentiometric titration). A systematic study of the adsorptions of a series of analogous aromatic adsorbates on the three activated carbons was carried out to study the adsorption mechanisms. In all cases the adsorption mechanism is based on π-π interactions between the aromatic moiety of the adsorbates and the arene centres of the graphite sheets. The differences in the normalized adsorption capacities of the adsorbents for a set of adsorbates indicate that the π-donor or π-withdrawing character of the functional groups have a clear influence on the basicity of the arene centres.

Sonochemical synthesis of graphene oxide supported Pt–Pd alloy nanocrystals as efficient electrocatalysts for methanol oxidation

Pt–Pd bimetallic nanoparticles supported on graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets were prepared by a sonochemical reduction method in the presence of polyethylene glycol as a stabilizing agent. The synthetic method allowed for a fine tuning of the particle composition without significant changes in their size and degree of aggregation. Detailed characterization of GO-supported Pt–Pd catalysts was carried out by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), AFM, XPS, and electrochemical techniques. Uniform deposition of Pt–Pd nanoparticles with an average diameter of 3 nm was achieved on graphene nanosheets using a novel dual-frequency sonication approach. GO-supported bimetallic catalyst showed significant electrocatalytic activity for methanol oxidation. The influence of different molar compositions of Pt and Pd (1:1, 2:1, and 3:1) on the methanol oxidation efficiency was also evaluated. Among the different Pt/Pd ratios, the 1:1 ratio material showed the lowest onset potential and generated the highest peak current density. The effect of catalyst loading on carbon paper (working electrode) was also studied. Increasing the catalyst loading beyond a certain amount lowered the catalytic activity due to the aggregation of metal particle-loaded GO nanosheets.

Los derechos de los vencidos: las capitulaciones de Granada (1491)

El artículo propone una lectura de las cláusulas religiosas de las capitulaciones para la entrega de Granada (25 de noviembre de 1491). Se pone en tela de juicio la idea, comúnmente aceptada en la historiografía, de que las capitulaciones establecían el respeto a las leyes y a la religión de los vencidos y que, por lo tanto, las actuaciones que llevaron a la conversión de los musulmanes de Granada en los años 1499-1501 violaron las mismas capitulaciones. La comparación entre las peticiones del rey Boabdil y el texto firmado por los Reyes Católicos, apoyada sobre el derecho canónico, permite aclarar la posición de los Reyes en puntos tan decisivos como las modalidades del culto islámico, las señales de identificación, la prohibición de las conversiones forzadas y el estatuto de los hombres y mujeres convertidos del Cristianismo al Islam (elches). Se intenta demostrar que las capitulaciones, lejos de fijar la situación religiosa en Granada, establecían la dominación cristiana, abriendo el paso a una dinámica de conversión de la población musulmana y a la recuperación de los elches por la Iglesia.

La onomástica de la conversión: señas de identidad y transformación antroponímica de los moriscos de Granada (1500-1569)

Las transformaciones padecidas por los musulmanes de Granada a raíz de la conversión masiva de 1499-1500 se reflejan en el cambio antroponímico inicial y su evolución durante el siglo XVI. En este estudio se evalúa la autenticidad de los nombres árabes en los documentos castellanos y se propone una metodología onomástica que abarca dos sistemas diversos (el árabe y el castellano) y que permite un cierto grado de sincretismo. La onomástica comparativa (sincrónica y diacrónica) desde la Edad Media hasta la Moderna, con muestras de otros colectivos permite calibrar el grado de aculturación de los moriscos y descubrir patrones de comportamiento cultural que resultan difícilmente discernibles por otros medios.

Computing the zeros of the partial sums of the Riemann zeta function

In this paper, we introduce a formula for the exact number of zeros of every partial sum of the Riemann zeta function inside infinitely many rectangles of the critical strips where they are situated.

Visual perception for the 3D recognition of geometric pieces in robotic manipulation

During grasping and intelligent robotic manipulation tasks, the camera position relative to the scene changes dramatically because the robot is moving to adapt its path and correctly grasp objects. This is because the camera is mounted at the robot effector. For this reason, in this type of environment, a visual recognition system must be implemented to recognize and “automatically and autonomously” obtain the positions of objects in the scene. Furthermore, in industrial environments, all objects that are manipulated by robots are made of the same material and cannot be differentiated by features such as texture or color. In this work, first, a study and analysis of 3D recognition descriptors has been completed for application in these environments. Second, a visual recognition system designed from specific distributed client-server architecture has been proposed to be applied in the recognition process of industrial objects without these appearance features. Our system has been implemented to overcome problems of recognition when the objects can only be recognized by geometric shape and the simplicity of shapes could create ambiguity. Finally, some real tests are performed and illustrated to verify the satisfactory performance of the proposed system.

Evaluation of sampling method effects in 3D non-rigid registration

Since the beginning of 3D computer vision problems, the use of techniques to reduce the data to make it treatable preserving the important aspects of the scene has been necessary. Currently, with the new low-cost RGB-D sensors, which provide a stream of color and 3D data of approximately 30 frames per second, this is getting more relevance. Many applications make use of these sensors and need a preprocessing to downsample the data in order to either reduce the processing time or improve the data (e.g., reducing noise or enhancing the important features). In this paper, we present a comparison of different downsampling techniques which are based on different principles. Concretely, five different downsampling methods are included: a bilinear-based method, a normal-based, a color-based, a combination of the normal and color-based samplings, and a growing neural gas (GNG)-based approach. For the comparison, two different models have been used acquired with the Blensor software. Moreover, to evaluate the effect of the downsampling in a real application, a 3D non-rigid registration is performed with the data sampled. From the experimentation we can conclude that depending on the purpose of the application some kernels of the sampling methods can improve drastically the results. Bilinear- and GNG-based methods provide homogeneous point clouds, but color-based and normal-based provide datasets with higher density of points in areas with specific features. In the non-rigid application, if a color-based sampled point cloud is used, it is possible to properly register two datasets for cases where intensity data are relevant in the model and outperform the results if only a homogeneous sampling is used.

Constrained self-organizing feature map to preserve feature extraction topology

In many classification problems, it is necessary to consider the specific location of an n-dimensional space from which features have been calculated. For example, considering the location of features extracted from specific areas of a two-dimensional space, as an image, could improve the understanding of a scene for a video surveillance system. In the same way, the same features extracted from different locations could mean different actions for a 3D HCI system. In this paper, we present a self-organizing feature map able to preserve the topology of locations of an n-dimensional space in which the vector of features have been extracted. The main contribution is to implicitly preserving the topology of the original space because considering the locations of the extracted features and their topology could ease the solution to certain problems. Specifically, the paper proposes the n-dimensional constrained self-organizing map preserving the input topology (nD-SOM-PINT). Features in adjacent areas of the n-dimensional space, used to extract the feature vectors, are explicitly in adjacent areas of the nD-SOM-PINT constraining the neural network structure and learning. As a study case, the neural network has been instantiate to represent and classify features as trajectories extracted from a sequence of images into a high level of semantic understanding. Experiments have been thoroughly carried out using the CAVIAR datasets (Corridor, Frontal and Inria) taken into account the global behaviour of an individual in order to validate the ability to preserve the topology of the two-dimensional space to obtain high-performance classification for trajectory classification in contrast of non-considering the location of features. Moreover, a brief example has been included to focus on validate the nD-SOM-PINT proposal in other domain than the individual trajectory. Results confirm the high accuracy of the nD-SOM-PINT outperforming previous methods aimed to classify the same datasets.

O efeito mediador da motivação intrínseca na relação entre as características da função e o desempenho individual

Objetivo. Este trabalho testa empiricamente como as perceções acerca das características da função explicam o desempenho individual, tanto diretamente quanto através da mediação da motivação intrínseca. As características da função estudadas abarcam a variedade de trabalho, a autonomia, o feedback, a relação com os outros, a identidade da tarefa e a amizade no local de trabalho (Sims, Szilagyi e Keller, 1976). Embora seja profícua a investigação que considera estes constructos, é menos frequente aquela que: (a) os considera em simultâneo, (b) testa a evidência empírica em Portugal, e (c) considera tanto o desempenho individual autoreportado como o avaliado pelas chefias. Metodologia. A amostra abarca 153 colaboradores (95% do género feminino, 56% com o 9.º ano de escolaridade, 27% com o secundário e 17% com um curso superior, 9% desempenham funções de chefia) provenientes de cinco Instituições Particulares de Solidariedade Social. A idade média dos inquiridos cifra-se nos 43,2 anos (DP: 9,6) e a antiguidade média em 10,2 anos (DP: 8,4). As características da função foram medidas com a escala de Sims et al. (1976), a motivação intrínseca através da escala de Warr, Cook e Wall (1979) e o desempenho individual através da escala de Welbourne, Jonhson e Erez (1998). Os dados foram submetidos análises fatoriais exploratórias. Analisou-se a consistência interna das escalas e prosseguiu-se com análises de médias, correlações e regressões lineares hierárquicas. O efeito mediador da motivação intrínseca foi testado através do Teste de Sobel.Resultados. Os dados sugerem o seguinte: (a) a motivação intrínseca medeia totalmente a relação entre as características da função e o desempenho autoreportado, não ocorrendo o mesmo efeito mediador com o desempenho avaliado pelas chefias; (b) as características da função influenciam direta e positivamente a motivação intrínseca e o desempenho reportado pelas chefias; (c) a motivação intrínseca afeta positivamente o desempenho autoreportado. Emergem diferenças significativas entre a autoavaliação de desempenho e a respetiva avaliação pelas chefias, o que surpreende. Aprofundou-se o estudo para aferir a razão de tal diferença. Contributo. O presente estudo contribui para compreender como as características da função influenciam a motivação intrínseca das pessoas no trabalho e o seu desempenho individual. Limitações. O desempenho individual foi medido através de uma medida subjetiva pelo que estudos futuros devem privilegiar medidas de desempenho objetivas. A relação entre os constructos e a medida de desempenho autoreportado pode padecer de problemas atinentes à variância do método comum.

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Texto fechado en Lovaina, 1520, tomado de O5v

Silua de varia lection / compuesta por el Magnifico cauallero Pero Mexia.

Lugar e impresor tomados del colofón