Development, implementation, and evaluation of a structured reporting web tool for abdominal aortic aneurysms

BACKGROUND The majority of radiological reports are lacking a standard structure. Even within a specialized area of radiology, each report has its individual structure with regards to details and order, often containing too much of non-relevant information the referring physician is not interested in. For gathering relevant clinical key parameters in an efficient way or to support long-term therapy monitoring, structured reporting might be advantageous. OBJECTIVE Despite of new technologies in medical information systems, medical reporting is still not dynamic. To improve the quality of communication in radiology reports, a new structured reporting system was developed for abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA), intended to enhance professional communication by providing the pertinent clinical information in a predefined standard. METHODS Actual state analysis was performed within the departments of radiology and vascular surgery by developing a Technology Acceptance Model. The SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis focused on optimization of the radiology reporting of patients with AAA. Definition of clinical parameters was achieved by interviewing experienced clinicians in radiology and vascular surgery. For evaluation, a focus group (4 radiologists) looked at the reports of 16 patients. The usability and reliability of the method was validated in a real-world test environment in the field of radiology. RESULTS A Web-based application for radiological "structured reporting" (SR) was successfully standardized for AAA. Its organization comprises three main categories: characteristics of pathology and adjacent anatomy, measurements, and additional findings. Using different graphical widgets (eg, drop-down menus) in each category facilitate predefined data entries. Measurement parameters shown in a diagram can be defined for clinical monitoring and be adducted for quick adjudications. Figures for optional use to guide and standardize the reporting are embedded. Analysis of variance shows decreased average time required with SR to obtain a radiological report compared to free-text reporting (P=.0001). Questionnaire responses confirm a high acceptance rate by the user. CONCLUSIONS The new SR system may support efficient radiological reporting for initial diagnosis and follow-up for AAA. Perceived advantages of our SR platform are ease of use, which may lead to more accurate decision support. The new system is open to communicate not only with clinical partners but also with Radiology Information and Hospital Information Systems.

Patient-centered medical home technology effects on hypertension and diabetes control

Background: Hypertension and Diabetes is a public health and economic concern in the United States. The utilization of medical home concepts increases the receipt of preventive services, however, do they also increase adherence to treatments? This study examined the effect of patient-centered medical home technologies such as the electronic health record, clinical support system, and web-based care management in improving health outcomes related to hypertension and diabetes. Methods: A systematic review of the literature used a best evidence synthesis approach to address the general question " Do patient-centered medical home technologies have an effect of diabetes and hypertension treatment?" This was followed by an evaluation of specific examples of the technologies utilized such as computer-assisted recommendations and web-based care management provided by the patient's electronic health record. Ebsco host, Ovid host, and Google Scholar were the databases used to conduct the literature search. Results: The initial search identified over 25 studies based on content and quality that implemented technology interventions to improve communication between provider and patient. After further assessing the articles for risk of bias and study design, 13 randomized controlled studies were chosen. All of the studies chosen were conducted in various primary care settings in both private practices and hospitals between the years 2000 and 2007. The sample sizes of the studies ranged from 42 to 2924 participants. The mean age for all of the studies ranged from 56 to 71 years. The percent women in the studies ranged from one to 78 percent. Over one-third of the studies did not provide the racial composition of the participants. For the seven studies that did provide information about the ethnic composition, 64% of the intervention participants were White. All of the studies utilized some type of web-based or computer-based communication to manage hypertension or diabetes care. Findings on outcomes were mixed, with nine out of 13 studies showing no significant effect on outcomes examined, and four of the studies showing significant and positive impact on health outcomes related to hypertension or diabetes Conclusion: Although the technologies improved patient and provider satisfaction, the outcomes measures such as blood pressure control and glucose control were inconclusive. Further research is needed with diverse ethnic and SES population to investigate the role of patient-centered technologies on hypertension and diabetes control. Also, further research is needed to investigate the effects of innovative medical home technologies that can be used by both patients and providers to increase quality of communication concerning adherence to treatments.^

The relationship between hospital financial performance and information technology integration strategy selection

In light of the new healthcare regulations, hospitals are increasingly reevaluating their IT integration strategies to meet expanded healthcare information exchange requirements. Nevertheless, hospital executives do not have all the information they need to differentiate between the available strategies and recognize what may better fit their organizational needs. ^ In the interest of providing the desired information, this study explored the relationships between hospital financial performance, integration strategy selection, and strategy change. The integration strategies examined – applied as binary logistic regression dependent variables and in the order from most to least integrated – were Single-Vendor (SV), Best-of-Suite (BoS), and Best-of-Breed (BoB). In addition, the financial measurements adopted as independent variables for the models were two administrative labor efficiency and six industry standard financial ratios designed to provide a broad proxy of hospital financial performance. Furthermore, descriptive statistical analyses were carried out to evaluate recent trends in hospital integration strategy change. Overall six research questions were proposed for this study. ^ The first research question sought to answer if financial performance was related to the selection of integration strategies. The next questions, however, explored whether hospitals were more likely to change strategies or remain the same when there was no external stimulus to change, and if they did change, they would prefer strategies closer to the existing ones. These were followed by a question that inquired if financial performance was also related to strategy change. Nevertheless, rounding up the questions, the last two probed if the new Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act had any impact on the frequency and direction of strategy change. ^ The results confirmed that financial performance is related to both IT integration strategy selection and strategy change, while concurred with prior studies that suggested hospital and environmental characteristics are associated factors as well. Specifically this study noted that the most integrated SV strategy is related to increased administrative labor efficiency and the hybrid BoS strategy is associated with improved financial health (based on operating margin and equity financing ratios). On the other hand, no financial indicators were found to be related to the least integrated BoB strategy, except for short-term liquidity (current ratio) when involving strategy change. ^ Ultimately, this study concluded that when making IT integration strategy decisions hospitals closely follow the resource dependence view of minimizing uncertainty. As each integration strategy may favor certain organizational characteristics, hospitals traditionally preferred not to make strategy changes and when they did, they selected strategies that were more closely related to the existing ones. However, as new regulations further heighten revenue uncertainty while require increased information integration, moving forward, as evidence already suggests a growing trend of organizations shifting towards more integrated strategies, hospitals may be more limited in their strategy selection choices.^

Structural behaviour and design criteria of under-deck cable-stayed bridges subjected to seismic action

Under-deck cable-stayed bridges are very effective structural systems for which the strong contribution of the stay cables under live loading allows for the design of very slender decks for persistent and transient loading scenarios. Their behaviour when subjected to seismic excitation is investigated herein and a set of design criteria are presented that relate to the type and arrangement of bearings, the number and configuration of struts, and the transverse distribution of stay cables. The nonlinear behaviour of these bridges when subject to both near-field and far-field accelerograms has been thoroughly investigated through the use of incremental dynamic analyses. An intensity measure that reflects the pertinent contributions to response when several vibration modes are activated was proposed and is shown to be effective for the analysis of this structural type. The under-deck cable-stay system contributes in a very positive manner to reducing the response when the bridges are subject to very strong seismic excitation. For such scenarios, the reduction in the stiffness of the deck because of crack formation, when prestressed concrete decks are used, mobilises the cable system and enhances the overall performance of the system. Sets of natural accelerograms that are compliant with the prescriptions of Eurocode 8 were also applied to propose a set of design criteria for this bridge type in areas prone to earthquakes. Particular attention is given to outlining the optimal strategies for the deployment of bearings

Research activities of Spanish antenna groups

When we look at the history of electricity and electromagnetism in Spain we discover that the most important Spanish researchers are generally out of the official institutions or stable research groups until the 20th century [1] [2]. In the 20th century most of the scientific research is done in stable research institutions and universities and the most important electromagnetism research centres in Spain are located in the Faculty of Physics of the most important universities, the National Scientific Research Council (CSIC) and the School for Telecommunication Engineering created in 1923. But the greatest impulse of research in the antenna and radiowave propagation field is done after 1960 reaching the first national URSI conference in 1980. After that year, the relation between groups and the number of research groups is continuously growing and the relation to industry is also increasing. When Spain joins the European research organizations (COST, ERC...) and the European Union in 1985 the research support experience a fast growing and the participation in the European research structures. In the antenna design field, there exist some specializations although most of the groups have dome specific projects in almost all the antenna analysis and design fields. Here, we have selected the most important and characteristic area related to each of the research groups and institutions. The easiest way to classify the research work in antennas is the selection between antenna analysis, design and measurement. After that the selected frequency bands technology, the type of antennas and the related circuits can be a good criterion to describe the variety of research work and specialization between groups.

Definition of a support infrastructure for replicating and aggregating families of software engineering experiments

Experimental software engineering includes several processes, the most representative being run experiments, run replications and synthesize the results of multiple replications. Of these processes, only the first is relatively well established in software engineering. Problems of information management and communication among researchers are one of the obstacles to progress in the replication and synthesis processes. Software engineering experimentation has expanded considerably over the last few years. This has brought with it the invention of experimental process support proposals. However, few of these proposals provide integral support, including replication and synthesis processes. Most of the proposals focus on experiment execution. This paper proposes an infrastructure providing integral support for the experimental research process, specializing in the replication and synthesis of a family of experiments. The research has been divided into stages or phases, whose transition milestones are marked by the attainment of their goals. Each goal exactly matches an artifact or product. Within each stage, we will adopt cycles of successive approximations (generateand- test cycles), where each approximation includes a diferent viewpoint or input. Each cycle will end with the product approval.

Evaluación para el aprendizaje en la asignatura sistemas operativos en modalidad online: un estudio cualitativo basado en la taxonomía de Bloom

La asignatura Sistemas Operativos presenta dificultades para su aprendizaje, pero poco se conoce acerca de las mismas, ya que no han sido determinadas ni estudiadas por la literatura. Asimismo, los trabajos existentes sobre la enseñanza y aprendizaje de Sistemas Operativos se limitan a proponer distintos enfoques para impartir la asignatura y en general no evalúan el aprendizaje de los estudiantes para comprobar la eficacia del método propuesto ni usan metodologías de investigación rigurosas. Por otra parte, la impartición de la asignatura Sistemas Operativos en modalidad online ha sido escasamente estudiada y podría tener dificultades adicionales a las de la modalidad presencial, ya que el contexto online impone una serie de restricciones tanto para el profesor como para el estudiante. En la presente tesis se ha llevado a cabo una evaluación formativa en la asignatura Sistemas Operativos, perteneciente al Grado de Ingeniería Informática de una universidad online. El objetivo inicial de la evaluación era descubrir las dificultades de los estudiantes para la comprensión de los conceptos de la asignatura. Posteriormente y, dada la buena aceptación de la evaluación por parte de los estudiantes, se ampliaron los objetivos del trabajo para explorar los efectos de la evaluación realizada sobre el aprendizaje. La evaluación formativa diseñada está basada en la taxonomía revisada de Bloom y sus principales objetivos son: (a) promover el aprendizaje significativo y (b) hacer a los estudiantes conscientes de su proceso de aprendizaje. La metodología de investigación utilizada es el estudio de caso cualitativo y la muestra está constituida por 9 estudiantes del total de 13 matriculados en la asignatura. Los datos cualitativos analizados proceden de las pruebas de evaluación formativa llevadas a cabo por los estudiantes durante la impartición de la asignatura. Los conceptos de sistemas operativos que han resultado más difíciles de comprender en el curso online estudiado han sido las interrupciones y los semáforos. Además, alrededor de estos conceptos se han identificado las dificultades específicas y sus posibles causas. Las dificultades descubiertas acerca de los semáforos corroboran las investigaciones existentes en el área de programación concurrente. El resto de las dificultades identificadas no habían sido determinadas por la literatura existente. En cuanto a los efectos de la evaluación formativa sobre el aprendizaje, la evidencia empírica muestra que ésta ha provocado en los estudiantes una reflexión profunda sobre los conceptos de la asignatura y sobre su propio proceso de aprendizaje. El estudio de caso presentado puede ayudar a los profesores del área de ingeniería a crear evaluaciones formativas en cursos online. La tesis, por tanto, realiza aportaciones relevantes en las áreas de enseñanza y aprendizaje de sistemas operativos, evaluación formativa, metodologías cualitativas y educación online. ABSTRACT Operating Systems is a difficult subject to learn; however little is known about said difficulties, as they have not been studied nor determined by the relevant literature. Existing studies on teaching and learning the subject of operating systems are limited to presenting different approaches for teaching the subject and generally do not evaluate students’ learning to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods, nor do they use rigorous research methodologies. On the other hand, there are very few studies on teaching operating systems online, which may inherently present more difficulties than the in-person format, since an online context imposes a series of restrictions on both professors and students, such as not having face-to-face interaction for communications. This thesis studies a formative assessment of the subject of operating systems, as part of the Degree in Information Technology Engineering for an online university. The initial objective of this assessment was to determine the students’ difficulties in conceptual comprehension for this subject. Once students had accepted the assessment, the study’s objectives were expanded to include an investigation of the effects of the assessment on learning. The designed formative assessment was based on Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy with the following main objectives: (a) to promote meaningful learning and (b) (b) to make students aware of their learning process. The research methodology involves a qualitative case study with a sample consisting of 9 of the total 13 students registered for this course. The qualitative data analyzed comes from the formative assessment tests taken by these students during the course. The most difficult operating systems concepts for students in the online course were interrupts and semaphores. Additionally, the specific difficulties and their possible causes have been identified. The students’ comprehension difficulties with semaphores corroborate the existing research in the area of concurrent programming. The other identified difficulties were not discussed in the existing literature. Regarding the effects of the formative assessment on learning, the empirical evidence shows that it causes students to reflect carefully on the subject’s concepts as well as their own learning process. The presented case study can help professors in the area of engineering to create formative assessments for online courses. This thesis, therefore, makes relevant contributions to the areas of teaching and learning operating systems, formative assessment, qualitative methodologies, and online education.

The Spreading of Christianity and the introduction of Modern Architecture in Shannxi, China (1840-1949): Christian churches and traditional Chinese architecture

La arquitectura china ha experimentado grandes cambios a lo largo de un extenso proceso histórico. El hito de mayor importancia es el que da paso al denominado Tiempo Moderno, periodo en el cual irrumpe por vez primera en China la arquitectura occidental, que comienza a tener una influencia muy activa y significativa sobre los rasgos y la identidad de la arquitectura tradicional china, hasta ese momento el único estilo o forma de hacer –muy diferente, en cuanto a su concepción y fisonomía, de los planteamientos occidentales- que había sobrevivido sin desvíos significativos, configurando un panorama milenario bastante homogéneo en los aspectos técnicos y artísticos en el desarrollo de esa arquitectura. Por un cúmulo de complejas razones, la mayor parte de la arquitectura china del periodo feudal -es decir el que forman todos los años anteriores a 1849- ha desaparecido. Sin embargo, desde la fecha indicada hasta la Revolución de 1949 (el denominado periodo semicolonial o semifeudal), sí se conservan muchas edificaciones, que fueron mejor construidas y mantenidas luego, destacando por su importancia en ese sentido las iglesias cristianas. Dichos templos representan cronológicamente, no sólo la primera irrupción de la arquitectura clásica occidental en China, sino el inicio de un proceso de modernización de la profundamente enraizada y, en buena medida, estancada arquitectura vernácula, combinando técnicas y estilos de ambos planteamientos, para dar como resultado originales edificaciones de un singular eclecticismo que caracterizarían buena parte de la arquitectura de dicha etapa semicolonial. En términos generales, últimamente se ha ido prestando cada vez más atención a esta arquitectura de los tiempos modernos, aunque las iglesias cristianas de la provincia de Shaanxi no han sido objeto de estudio específico, a pesar de que su tipología es muy representativa de las construcciones de esta clase en otras regiones del interior de China. La investigación que desarrolla la presente tesis doctoral sale al paso de esa deficiencia, abriendo puertas a la continuación del trabajo referido, extendido a otras zonas o arquitecturas, y, por extensión, a la profundización analítica de la hibridación arquitectónica y cultural entre China y Occidente. Sobre las bases de investigación documental, estudios de campo y dibujo, la tesis plantea un estudio aclaratorio de los rasgos y raíces de la arquitectura tradicional china, al que sigue otro histórico y tipológico de los templos cristianos en la provincia de Shaanxi, deteniéndose en sus características fundamentales, situación (uso) actual y estado de conservación. Se ha considerado imprescindible añadir al trabajo, como apéndice, un elaborado glosario conceptual ilustrado de términos básicos arquitectónicos y constructivos, en chino, inglés y español. ABSTRACT The Chinese architecture has gone through great changes during the long process of history. The tremendous changing period was the named Modern Times of China when, for the very first time, the western architecture was introduced into China and became to influence majorly on the traditional Chinese architecture. Before that, the traditional Chinese architecture which has its own, yet totally different system from the occidental architecture system was the only architectural style could be found in China. Although, due to many historical, conceptual and architectural characteristic reasons, large amount of the ancient Chinese architecture built in the feudal China was not preserved, there are a lot of buildings of semi-feudal China that was well constructed and conserved. The most important architectural type of the semi-feudal China is the Christian Churches. It was not only the first western architectural form that was brought into and well developed in China, but also was the beginner of the modernization process of Chinese architecture. Because of the deep root of the 2000-year traditional Chinese architecture, all the Christian Churches built in China during the semi-colonial society has a combined style of both the traditional Chinese architecture and the classic western churches. They are a priceless asset of the Chinese architectural history. Recently, more and more attention had been paid on the Chinese Modern Times architecture, however, the Christian Churches in Shaanxi Province, the province which has a unique history with the Christian, but less economically developed have never been researched yet. The Christian Churches of Shaanxi Province reflect the general feature of developing history of the Christian Churches of common inner-land regions in China. The research opens the door to further study on other Christian Churches and related buildings, and also for the further study on the Chinese-western architectural and culture communication. On the base of document research, field survey and mapping, in this thesis, an in-depth study had been done on the general history of the features and roots of the traditional Chinese architecture, the developing history of the Christian Churches of Shaanxi Province and the architectural types, examples, characteristics, present situation and conservation status. By comparing the Christian Churches of the cities in Shaanxi province to the Christian Churches in other more developed cities, and by comparing the Christian Churches in China to the classic western churches, the architectural combination feature of the Christian Churches in China are highlighted. The thesis is a fundamental research on which many further studies about the architectural developing history, characteristics and conservation of the Christian Churches in China could be done. It is considered essential to add to the work, as an appendix, an elaborate conceptual illustrated glossary of architectural and construction terms in Chinese, English and Spanish.

Contribution to the analysis and design of reflectarray antennas for reconfigurable beam applications at frequencies above 100 GHz using liquid crystal technology

El trabajo contenido en esta tesis doctoral está encuadrado en el desarrollo de antenas reconfigurables electrónicamente capaces de proporcionar prestaciones competitivas a las aplicaciones cada vez más comunes que operan a frecuencias superiores a 60 GHz. En concreto, esta tesis se centra en el estudio, diseño, e implementación de las antenas reflectarray, a las que se introduce la tecnología de cristal líquido como elemento característico con el que se consigue reconfigurabilidad de haz de forma electrónica. Desde un punto de vista muy general, se puede describir un cristal líquido como un material cuya permitividad eléctrica es variable y controlada por una excitación externa, que generalmente suele corresponderse con un campo eléctrico quasi-estático (AC). Las antenas reflectarray de cristal líquido se han escogido como objeto de estudio por varias razones. La primera de ellas tiene que ver con las ventajas que los reflectarrays, y en especial aquellos realizados en configuración planar, proporcionan con respecto a otras antenas de alta ganancia como los reflectores o los “phased-arrays”. En los reflectarrays, la alimentación a través de una fuente primaria común (característica de reflectores) y el elevado número de grados de libertad de las celdas que los componen (característica de arrays) hacen que estas antenas puedan proporcionar prestaciones eléctricas iguales o mejores que las anteriores, a un coste más reducido y con estructuras de antena más compactas. La segunda razón radica en la flexibilidad que ofrece el cristal líquido a ser confinado y polarizado en recintos de geometría variada, como consecuencia de su fluidez (propiedad de los líquidos). Por ello, la tecnología de cristal líquido permite que el propio elemento reconfigurable en las celdas de reflectarray se adapte a la configuración planar de manera que en sí mismo, el cristal líquido sea una o varias de las capas características de esta configuración. Esto simplifica de forma drástica la estructura y la fabricación de este tipo de antenas, incluso si se comparan con reflectarrays reconfigurables basados en otras tecnologías como diodos, MEMS, etc. Por tanto, su coste y desarrollo es muy reducido, lo que hace que se puedan fabricar reflectarrays reconfigurables eléctricamente grandes, a bajo coste, y en producción elevada. Un ejemplo claro de una estructura similar, y que ha tenido éxito comercial, son las pantallas de cristal líquido. La tercera razón reside en el hecho de que el cristal líquido es, hasta la fecha, de las pocas tecnologías capaces de ofrecer reconfigurabilidad del haz a frecuencias superiores a 60 GHz. De hecho, el cristal líquido permite reconfigurabilidad en un amplio margen de frecuencias, que va desde DC a frecuencias del espectro visible, incluyendo las microondas y los THz. Otras tecnologías, como los materiales ferroeléctricos, el grafeno o la tecnología CMOS “on chip” permiten también conmutar el haz en estas frecuencias. Sin embargo, la tecnología CMOS tiene un elevado coste y actualmente está limitada a frecuencias inferiores a 150 GHz, y aunque los materiales ferroeléctricos o el grafeno puedan conmutar a frecuencias más altas y en un rango más amplio, tienen serias dificultades que los hacen aún inmaduros. En el caso de los materiales ferroeléctricos, los elevados voltajes para conmutar el material los hacen poco atractivos, mientras que en el caso del grafeno, su modelado aún está en discusión, y todavía no se han arrojado resultados experimentales que validen su idoneidad. Estas tres razones hacen que los reflectarrays basados en cristal líquido sean atractivos para multitud de aplicaciones de haz reconfigurable a frecuencias superiores a 60 GHz. Aplicaciones como radar de escaneo de imágenes de alta resolución, espectroscopia molecular, radiómetros para observación atmosférica, o comunicaciones inalámbricas de alta frecuencia (WiGig) son algunas de ellas. La tesis está estructurada en tres partes. En la primera de ellas se describen las características más comunes de los cristales líquidos, centrándonos en detalle en aquellas propiedades ofrecidas por este material en fase nemática. En concreto, se estudiará la anisotropía dieléctrica (Ae) de los cristales líquidos uniaxiales, que son los que se emplean en esta tesis, definida como la diferencia entre la permitividad paralela (£//) y la perpendicular (e±): Ae = e,, - e±. También se estudiará la variación de este parámetro (Ae) con la frecuencia, y el modelado electromagnético macroscópico más general que, extraído a partir de aquella, permite describir el cristal líquido para cada tensión de polarización en celdas de geometría planar. Este modelo es de suma importancia para garantizar precisión en el desfasaje proporcionado por las diferentes celdas reconfigurables para reflectarrays que se describirán en la siguiente parte de la tesis. La segunda parte de la tesis se centra en el diseño de celdas reflectarray resonantes basadas en cristal líquido. La razón por la que se escogen estos tipos de celdas reside en el hecho de que son las únicas capaces de proporcionar rangos de fase elevados ante la reducida anisotropía dieléctrica que ofrecen los cristales líquidos. El objetivo de esta parte trata, por tanto, de obtener estructuras de celdas reflectarray que sean capaces de proporcionar buenas prestaciones eléctricas a nivel de antena, mejorando sustancialmente las prestaciones de las celdas reportadas en el estado del arte, así como de desarrollar una herramienta de diseño general para aquellas. Para ello, se estudian las prestaciones eléctricas de diferentes tipos de elementos resonantes de cristal líquido que van, desde el más sencillo, que ha limitado el estado de la técnica hasta el desarrollo de esta tesis y que está formado por un sólo resonador, a elementos que constan de varios resonadores (multi-resonantes) y que pueden ser monocapa o multicapa. En un primer paso, el procedimiento de diseño de estas estructuras hace uso de un modelo convencional de cristal líquido que ha venido siendo usado en el estado del arte para este tipo de celdas, y que considera el cristal líquido como un material homogéneo e isótropo cuya permitividad varía entre (e/7) y (e±). Sin embargo, en esta parte de la tesis se demuestra que dicho modelado no es suficiente para describir de forma genérica el comportamiento del cristal líquido en las celdas tipo reflectarray. En la tesis se proponen procedimientos más exactos para el análisis y diseño basados en un modelo más general que define el cristal líquido como un material anisótropo e inhomogeneo en tres dimensiones, y se ha implementado una técnica que permite optimizar celdas multi-resonantes de forma eficiente para conseguir elevadas prestaciones en cuanto a ancho de banda, rango de fase, pérdidas, o sensibilidad al ángulo de incidencia. Los errores cometidos en el uso del modelado convencional a nivel de celda (amplitud y fase) se han analizado para varias geometrías, usando medidas de varios prototipos de antena que usan un cristal líquido real a frecuencias superiores a 100 GHz. Las medidas se han realizado en entorno periódico mediante un banco cuasi-óptico, que ha sido diseñado especialmente para este fin. Uno de estos prototipos se ha optimizado a 100 GHz para conseguir un ancho de banda relativamente elevado (10%), pérdidas reducidas, un rango de fase mayor de 360º, baja sensibilidad al ángulo de incidencia, y baja influencia de la inhomogeneidad transversal del cristal líquido en la celda. Estas prestaciones a nivel de celda superan de forma clara aquellas conseguidas por otros elementos que se han reportado en la literatura, de manera que dicho prototipo se ha usado en la última parte de la tesis para realizar diversas antenas de barrido. Finalmente, en esta parte se presenta una estrategia de caracterización de la anisotropía macroscópica a partir de medidas de los elementos de reflectarray diseñados en banco cuasi-óptico, obteniendo resultados tanto en las frecuencias de interés en RF como en AC, y comparándolas con aquellas obtenidas mediante otros métodos. La tercera parte de la tesis consiste en el estudio, diseño, fabricación y medida de antenas reconfigurables basadas en cristal líquido en configuraciones complejas. En reflectarrays pasivos, el procedimiento de diseño de la antena se limita únicamente al ajuste en cada celda de la antena de las dimensiones de las metalizaciones que se emplean para el control de fase, mediante procesos de optimización bien conocidos. Sin embargo, en el caso de reflectarrays reconfigurables basados en cristal líquido, resulta necesario un paso adicional, que consiste en calcular de forma adecuada las tensiones de control en cada celda del reflectarray para configurar la fase requerida en cada una de ellas, así como diseñar la estructura y los circuitos de control que permitan direccionar a cada elemento su tensión correspondiente. La síntesis de tensiones es por tanto igual o más importante que el diseño de la geometría de las celdas, puesto que éstas son las que están directamente relacionadas con la fase. En el estado del arte, existen varias estrategias de síntesis de tensiones que se basan en la caracterización experimental de la curva de fase respecto al voltaje. Sin embargo, esta caracterización sólo puede hacerse a un solo ángulo de incidencia y para unas determinadas dimensiones de celda, lo que produce que las tensiones sintetizadas sean diferentes de las adecuadas, y en definitiva que se alcancen errores de fase mayores de 70º. De esta forma, hasta la fecha, las prestaciones a nivel de antena que se han conseguido son reducidas en cuanto a ancho de banda, rango de escaneo o nivel de lóbulos secundarios. En esta última parte de la tesis, se introduce una nueva estrategia de síntesis de tensiones que es capaz de predecir mediante simulaciones, y con alta precisión, las tensiones que deben introducirse en cada celda teniendo en cuenta su ángulo de incidencia, sus dimensiones, la frecuencia, así como la señal de polarización definida por su frecuencia y forma de onda AC. Esta estrategia se basa en modelar cada uno de los estados de permitividad del cristal líquido como un sustrato anisótropo con inhomogeneidad longitudinal (1D), o en ciertos casos, como un tensor equivalente homogéneo. La precisión de ambos modelos electromagnéticos también se discute. Con el objetivo de obtener una herramienta eficiente de cálculo de tensiones, también se ha escrito e implementado una herramienta de análisis basada en el Método de los Momentos en el Dominio Espectral (SD-MoM) para sustratos estratificados anisótropos, que se usa en cada iteración del procedimiento de síntesis para analizar cada una de las celdas de la antena. La síntesis de tensiones se ha diseñado además para reducir al máximo el efecto del rizado de amplitud en el diagrama de radiación, que es característico en los reflectarrays que están formados por celdas con pérdidas elevadas, lo que en sí, supone un avance adicional para la obtención de mejores prestaciones de antena. Para el cálculo de los diagramas de radiación empleados en el procedimiento de síntesis, se asume un análisis elemento a elemento considerando periodicidad local, y se propone el uso de un método capaz de modelar el campo incidente de forma que se elimine la limitación de la periodicidad local en la excitación. Una vez definida la estrategia adecuada de cálculo de las tensiones a aplicar al cristal líquido en cada celda, la estructura de direccionamiento de las mismas en la antena, y diseñados los circuitos de control, se diseñan, fabrican y miden dos prototipos diferentes de antena de barrido electrónico a 100 GHz usando las celdas anteriormente presentadas. El primero de estos prototipos es un reflectarray en configuración “single offset” con capacidad de escaneo en un plano (elevación o azimut). Aunque previamente se realizan diseños de antenas de barrido en 2D a varias frecuencias en el rango de milimétricas y sub-milimétricas, y se proponen ciertas estrategias de direccionamiento que permiten conseguir este objetivo, se desarrolla el prototipo con direccionamiento en una dimensión con el fin de reducir el número de controles y posibles errores de fabricación, y así también validar la herramienta de diseño. Para un tamaño medio de apertura (con un numero de filas y columnas entre 30 y 50 elementos, lo que significa un reflectarray con un número de elementos superior a 900), la configuración “single offset” proporciona rangos de escaneo elevados, y ganancias que pueden oscilar entre los 20 y 30 dBi. En concreto, el prototipo medido proporciona un haz de barrido en un rango angular de 55º, en el que el nivel de lóbulos secundarios (SLL) permanece mejor de -13 dB en un ancho de banda de un 8%. La ganancia máxima es de 19.4 dBi. Estas prestaciones superan de forma clara aquellas conseguidas por otros autores. El segundo prototipo se corresponde con una antena de doble reflector que usa el reflectarray de cristal líquido como sub-reflector para escanear el haz en un plano (elevación o azimut). El objetivo básico de esta geometría es obtener mayores ganancias que en el reflectarray “single offset” con una estructura más compacta, aunque a expensas de reducir el rango de barrido. En concreto, se obtiene una ganancia máxima de 35 dBi, y un rango de barrido de 12º. Los procedimientos de síntesis de tensiones y de diseño de las estructuras de las celdas forman, en su conjunto, una herramienta completa de diseño precisa y eficiente de antenas reflectarray reconfigurables basados en cristales líquidos. Dicha herramienta se ha validado mediante el diseño, la fabricación y la medida de los prototipos anteriormente citados a 100 GHz, que consiguen algo nunca alcanzado anteriormente en la investigación de este tipo de antenas: unas prestaciones competitivas y una predicción excelente de los resultados. El procedimiento es general, y por tanto se puede usar a cualquier frecuencia en la que el cristal líquido ofrezca anisotropía dieléctrica, incluidos los THz. Los prototipos desarrollados en esta tesis doctoral suponen también unas de las primeras antenas de barrido real a frecuencias superiores a 100 GHz. En concreto, la antena de doble reflector para escaneo de haz es la primera antena reconfigurable electrónicamente a frecuencias superiores a 60 GHz que superan los 25 dBi de ganancia, siendo a su vez la primera antena de doble reflector que contiene un reflectarray reconfigurable como sub-reflector. Finalmente, se proponen ciertas mejoras que aún deben se deben realizar para hacer que estas antenas puedan ser un producto completamente desarrollado y competitivo en el mercado. ABSTRACT The work presented in this thesis is focused on the development of electronically reconfigurable antennas that are able to provide competitive electrical performance to the increasingly common applications operating at frequencies above 60 GHz. Specifically, this thesis presents the study, design, and implementation of reflectarray antennas, which incorporate liquid crystal (LC) materials to scan or reconfigure the beam electronically. From a general point of view, a liquid crystal can be defined as a material whose dielectric permittivity is variable and can be controlled with an external excitation, which usually corresponds with a quasi-static electric field (AC). By changing the dielectric permittivity at each cell that makes up the reflectarray, the phase shift on the aperture is controlled, so that a prescribed radiation pattern can be configured. Liquid Crystal-based reflectarrays have been chosen for several reasons. The first has to do with the advantages provided by the reflectarray antenna with respect to other high gain antennas, such as reflectors or phased arrays. The RF feeding in reflectarrays is achieved by using a common primary source (as in reflectors). This arrangement and the large number of degrees of freedom provided by the cells that make up the reflectarray (as in arrays), allow these antennas to provide a similar or even better electrical performance than other low profile antennas (reflectors and arrays), but assuming a more reduced cost and compactness. The second reason is the flexibility of the liquid crystal to be confined in an arbitrary geometry due to its fluidity (property of liquids). Therefore, the liquid crystal is able to adapt to a planar geometry so that it is one or more of the typical layers of this configuration. This simplifies drastically both the structure and manufacture of this type of antenna, even when compared with reconfigurable reflectarrays based on other technologies, such as diodes MEMS, etc. Therefore, the cost of developing this type of antenna is very small, which means that electrically large reconfigurable reflectarrays could be manufactured assuming low cost and greater productions. A paradigmatic example of a similar structure is the liquid crystal panel, which has already been commercialized successfully. The third reason lies in the fact that, at present, the liquid crystal is one of the few technologies capable of providing switching capabilities at frequencies above 60 GHz. In fact, the liquid crystal allows its permittivity to be switched in a wide range of frequencies, which are from DC to the visible spectrum, including microwaves and THz. Other technologies, such as ferroelectric materials, graphene or CMOS "on chip" technology also allow the beam to be switched at these frequencies. However, CMOS technology is expensive and is currently limited to frequencies below 150 GHz, and although ferroelectric materials or graphene can switch at higher frequencies and in a wider range, they have serious difficulties that make them immature. Ferroelectric materials involve the use of very high voltages to switch the material, making them unattractive, whereas the electromagnetic modelling of the graphene is still under discussion, so that the experimental results of devices based on this latter technology have not been reported yet. These three reasons make LC-based reflectarrays attractive for many applications that involve the use of electronically reconfigurable beams at frequencies beyond 60 GHz. Applications such as high resolution imaging radars, molecular spectroscopy, radiometers for atmospheric observation, or high frequency wireless communications (WiGig) are just some of them. This thesis is divided into three parts. In the first part, the most common properties of the liquid crystal materials are described, especially those exhibited in the nematic phase. The study is focused on the dielectric anisotropy (Ac) of uniaxial liquid crystals, which is defined as the difference between the parallel (e/7) and perpendicular (e±) permittivities: Ae = e,, - e±. This parameter allows the permittivity of a LC confined in an arbitrary volume at a certain biasing voltage to be described by solving a variational problem that involves both the electrostatic and elastic energies. Thus, the frequency dependence of (Ae) is also described and characterised. Note that an appropriate LC modelling is quite important to ensure enough accuracy in the phase shift provided by each cell that makes up the reflectarray, and therefore to achieve a good electrical performance at the antenna level. The second part of the thesis is focused on the design of resonant reflectarray cells based on liquid crystal. The reason why resonant cells have been chosen lies in the fact that they are able to provide enough phase range using the values of the dielectric anisotropy of the liquid crystals, which are typically small. Thus, the aim of this part is to investigate several reflectarray cell architectures capable of providing good electrical performance at the antenna level, which significantly improve the electrical performance of the cells reported in the literature. Similarly, another of the objectives is to develop a general tool to design these cells. To fulfill these objectives, the electrical yields of different types of resonant reflectarray elements are investigated, beginning from the simplest, which is made up of a single resonator and limits the state of the art. To overcome the electrical limitations of the single resonant cell, several elements consisting of multiple resonators are considered, which can be single-layer or multilayer. In a first step, the design procedure of these structures makes use of a conventional electromagnetic model which has been used in the literature, which considers that the liquid crystal behaves as homogeneous and isotropic materials whose permittivity varies between (e/7) y (e±). However, in this part of the thesis it is shown that the conventional modelling is not enough to describe the physical behaviour of the liquid crystal in reflectarray cells accurately. Therefore, a more accurate analysis and design procedure based on a more general model is proposed and developed, which defines the liquid crystal as an anisotropic three-dimensional inhomogeneous material. The design procedure is able to optimize multi-resonant cells efficiently to achieve good electrical performance in terms of bandwidth, phase range, losses, or sensitivity to the angle of incidence. The errors made when the conventional modelling (amplitude and phase) is considered have been also analysed for various cell geometries, by using measured results from several antenna prototypes made up of real liquid crystals at frequencies above 100 GHz. The measurements have been performed in a periodic environment using a quasi-optical bench, which has been designed especially for this purpose. One of these prototypes has been optimized to achieve a relatively large bandwidth (10%) at 100 GHz, low losses, a phase range of more than 360º, a low sensitivity to angle of incidence, and a low influence of the transversal inhomogeneity of the liquid crystal in the cell. The electrical yields of this prototype at the cell level improve those achieved by other elements reported in the literature, so that this prototype has been used in the last part of the thesis to perform several complete antennas for beam scanning applications. Finally, in this second part of the thesis, a novel strategy to characterise the macroscopic anisotropy using reflectarray cells is presented. The results in both RF and AC frequencies are compared with those obtained by other methods. The third part of the thesis consists on the study, design, manufacture and testing of LCbased reflectarray antennas in complex configurations. Note that the design procedure of a passive reflectarray antenna just consists on finding out the dimensions of the metallisations of each cell (which are used for phase control), using well-known optimization processes. However, in the case of reconfigurable reflectarrays based on liquid crystals, an additional step must be taken into account, which consists of accurately calculating the control voltages to be applied to each cell to configure the required phase-shift distribution on the surface of the antenna. Similarly, the structure to address the voltages at each cell and the control circuitry must be also considered. Therefore, the voltage synthesis is even more important than the design of the cell geometries (dimensions), since the voltages are directly related to the phase-shift. Several voltage synthesis procedures have been proposed in the state of the art, which are based on the experimental characterization of the phase/voltage curve. However, this characterization can be only carried out at a single angle of incidence and at certain cell dimensions, so that the synthesized voltages are different from those needed, thus giving rise to phase errors of more than 70°. Thus, the electrical yields of the LCreflectarrays reported in the literature are limited in terms of bandwidth, scanning range or side lobes level. In this last part of the thesis, a new voltage synthesis procedure has been defined and developed, which allows the required voltage to be calculated at each cell using simulations that take into account the particular dimensions of the cells, their angles of incidence, the frequency, and the AC biasing signal (frequency and waveform). The strategy is based on the modelling of each one of the permittivity states of the liquid crystal as an anisotropic substrate with longitudinal inhomogeneity (1D), or in certain cases, as an equivalent homogeneous tensor. The accuracy of both electromagnetic models is also discussed. The phase errors made by using the proposed voltage synthesis are better than 7º. In order to obtain an efficient tool to analyse and design the reflectarray, an electromagnetic analysis tool based on the Method of Moments in the spectral domain (SD-MoM) has also written and developed for anisotropic stratified media, which is used at each iteration of the voltage synthesis procedure. The voltage synthesis is also designed to minimize the effect of amplitude ripple on the radiation pattern, which is typical of reflectarrays made up of cells exhibiting high losses and represents a further advance in achieving a better antenna performance. To calculate the radiation patterns used in the synthesis procedure, an element-by-element analysis is assumed, which considers the local periodicity approach. Under this consideration, the use of a novel method is proposed, which avoids the limitation that the local periodicity imposes on the excitation. Once the appropriate strategy to calculate the voltages to be applied at each cell is developed, and once it is designed and manufactured both the structure to address the voltages to the antenna and the control circuits, two complete LC-based reflectarray antennas that operate at 100 GHz have been designed, manufactured and tested using the previously presented cells. The first prototype consists of a single offset reflectarray with beam scanning capabilities on one plane (elevation and azimuth). Although several LC-reflectarray antennas that provide 2-D scanning capabilities are also designed, and certain strategies to achieve the 2-D addressing of the voltage are proposed, the manufactured prototype addresses the voltages in one dimension in order to reduce the number of controls and manufacturing errors, and thereby validating the design tool. For an average aperture size (with a number of rows and columns of between 30 and 50 elements, which means a reflectarray with more than 900 cells), the single offset configuration provides an antenna gain of between 20 and 30 dBi and a large scanning range. The prototype tested at 100 GHz exhibits an electronically scanned beam in an angular range of 55º and 8% of bandwidth, in which the side lobe level (SLL) remains better than -13 dB. The maximum gain is 19.4 dBi. The electrical performance of the antenna is clearly an improvement on those achieved by other authors in the state of the art. The second prototype corresponds to a dual reflector antenna with a liquid crystal-based reflectarray used as a sub-reflector for beam scanning in one plane (azimuth or elevation). The main objective is to obtain a higher gain than that provided by the single offset configuration, but using a more compact architecture. In this case, a maximum gain of 35 dBi is achieved, although at the expense of reducing the scanning range to 12°, which is inherent in this type of structure. As a general statement, the voltage synthesis and the design procedure of the cells, jointly make up a complete, accurate and efficient design tool of reconfigurable reflectarray antennas based on liquid crystals. The tool has been validated by testing the previously mentioned prototypes at 100 GHz, which achieve something never reached before for this type of antenna: a competitive electrical performance, and an excellent prediction of the results. The design procedure is general and therefore can be used at any frequency for which the liquid crystal exhibits dielectric anisotropy. The two prototypes designed, manufactured and tested in this thesis are also some of the first antennas that currently operate at frequencies above 100 GHz. In fact, the dual reflector antenna is the first electronically scanned dual reflector antenna at frequencies above 60 GHz (the operation frequency is 100 GHz) with a gain greater than 25 dBi, being in turn the first dual-reflector antenna with a real reconfigurable sub-reflectarray. Finally, some improvements that should be still investigated to make these antennas commercially competitive are proposed.

Hacia un Plano de Directrices Territoriales y Urbanísticas como instrumento esencial para la Habitabilidad Básica

La habitabilidad precaria (HaP) constituye hoy el primer problema mundial del urbanismo, la ordenación del territorio y varias otras disciplinas, como la arquitectura y varias ingenierías que, en conjunto, estructuran e impulsan el sector de la construcción mundial que se centra en atender el alojamiento humano en su diversidad de funciones. En la Conferencia Habitat II, celebrada en 1996 en Estambul, ante el desmesurado crecimiento cuantitativo de la HaP mundial, se planteó la prioridad de prevenir el problema de los nuevos asentamientos precarios: “paliar los problemas relacionados con los asentamientos humanos espontáneos mediante programas y políticas que se anticipen a los asentamientos no planeados”1, sin embargo, tras casi veinte años, aún no existe una herramienta sustantiva y específica que facilite a los políticos responsables de gestionar el desarrollo urbano en ciudades con bajos recursos de países en desarrollo, tomar decisiones que transformen de la forma más eficiente posible el fenómeno de la proliferación de asentamientos informales en una oportunidad de progreso y prosperidad para sus ciudades. La presente tesis parte de la convicción, que trata de fundamentar objetivamente a lo largo del desarrollo de su documentación, de que dicha herramienta fundamental ha de buscarse, a partir de la teoría Habitabilidad Básica, como un soporte esencial con el que reconducir los futuros procesos de ocupación espontánea periurbana. El propósito de la investigación se concreta en caracterizar, y conocer la óptima aplicabilidad, de un instrumento operativo elemental que ayude en la toma de decisiones estratégicas de las autoridades responsables sobre la mejor ubicación de los asentamientos que, hasta la existencia y aplicabilidad de este instrumento, se consideran espontáneos. Asentamientos espontáneos éstos que, en condiciones normales quedarían sujetos durante años a la precariedad mientras que por medio de tal instrumento abandonarían su génesis espontánea para acceder a través de planificación elemental a condiciones de Habitabilidad Básica. La materialización concreta de esta herramienta sería un plano sintético de directrices de ordenación territorial y urbana denominado Plano de Elección del Sitio (PES). Diseñado como un Modelo Teórico Elemental, su aplicación estaría preferentemente orientada a ciudades pequeñas de países en desarrollo que presenten escaso nivel institucional, limitada capacidad económica y técnica, así como ausencia o ineficacia en su planeamiento. A través de un proceso de investigación basado en: la mencionada teoría de la Habitabilidad Básica, la literatura científica de la materia y las experiencias de casos recientes de planificación urbana mediante la aplicación de sistemas de información del suelo, se propone una caracterización y aplicabilidad preliminar de la herramienta. Tras analizar pormenorizadamente sus fortalezas y debilidades y contando con la participación de un grupo de expertos independientes, el trabajo concluye con una nueva caracterización de la herramienta y la reformulación de la hipótesis inicial. ABSTRACT Nowadays, the precarious habitability (PHa) is the main problem of urbanism around the world, land-use planning and several other disciplines such as architecture and different engineering studies that, as a whole, structure and boost the global construction sector which focuses on meeting the Human accommodation in its functional diversity. In the Habitat II Conference in Istanbul in 1996, in light of the excessive quantitative growth of the global PHa, the priority of preventing the problem of new squatter settlements was raised: "to alleviate the problems related to spontaneous human settlements through programs and policies that anticipate unplanned settlements"2, however, after nearly twenty years, there is still no substantive and specific tool to facilitate policy makers to manage urban development for towns with low-income in developing countries, taking decisions that transform as efficiently as possible the phenomenon of the proliferation of informal settlements into an opportunity for progress and prosperity for their cities. This thesis is based on the conviction, which tries to objectively substantiate along the development of its documentation, that this fundamental tool has to be sought from the Basic Habitability theory as an essential support to redirect the future processes of peri-urban spontaneous occupation. The purpose of the research is carried out to characterize, and know the optimum applicability of a basic operational tool to assist in the strategic decisions making of the responsible authorities on the best location of settlements that, until the existence and applicability of this instrument, are considered spontaneous. Spontaneous settlements which, under normal conditions would be subject to the precariousness for years while under that instrument they would abandon their spontaneous genesis for accessing by elemental planning to the Basic Habitability. The concretionary materialization of this tool would be a synthetic guidelines plan of territorial and urban planning called Site Election Plan (SEP). Designed as a Elementary Theoretical Model, its application would preferably be oriented for small towns in developing countries that represent a low institutional, economic and technical limited capacity, as well as the absence or ineffectiveness in their planning. Throughout a research process based on: the aforementioned theory of Basic Habitability, the scientific literature of the subject and the experiences of recent cases of urban planning through the application of soil information systems, characterization and preliminary applicability of the tool is proposed. After attentively analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and with the participation of a group of independent experts, the paper concludes with a new characterization of the tool and the reformulation of the initial hypothesis.

Industriales Research Meeting 2016

Industriales Research Meeting 2016 (IRM16) is an event to show the research activities at the School of Industrial Engineering (ETSII) of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM). The main purpose of this event is to present the ongoing research carried out by professors and researchers of the Institutes, Research Centres, Research Groups and Departments of this School, through funded research projects in close collaboration with public and private institutions and companies, some of them from IBEX-35. This book contains the 138 posters presented from different branches of engineering such as: acoustic, aerospace, bioengineering, chemical, electrical, electronics, automation, energy, environmental, management and industrial organization, laser technology and industrial organization, laser technology and applications, materials, mathematics, statistics, mechanics, manufacturing, structures, nuclear technology, seismic, vehicles and railways.

Re-Ocupación y/o Re-Construcción de estructuras urbanas en desuso y su conexión con el espacio público y el paisaje

Los nuevos comportamientos urbanos nos permiten observar cada vez con más frecuencia en nuestras calles y plazas realidades que siempre habíamos considerado domésticas. Al contrario también pasa, todos los días vivimos en nuestras casas situaciones que implican relacionarnos con personas que no son de nuestro núcleo familiar. El diseño doméstico de nuestras ciudades y el urbanismo del diseño de interiores parecen herramientas oportunas en el mundo que nos ha tocado vivir. Esto nos lleva a pensar que los espacios públicos y privados son términos simplificados, definidos en base a conceptos de propiedad para organizar la ciudad. En cambio, sus usos y vivencias, su gestión y sus comportamientos se han complejizado, distorsionando la terminología convencional hasta hacerla obsoleta. En este contexto, considerado también el marco socioeconómico actual, surgen las “acciones de abajo a arriba” como nuevo paradigma o modelo de renovación urbana, que entienden la involucración del ciudadano como parte activa en el proceso de construcción de la urbe desde la misma gestación del proyecto, frente a las acciones habituales que consideran al usuario como mero receptor de las propuestas. Un ciudadano que parece estar cada vez más radicalizado y una administración que parece asustarse ante el desconcierto que el acercamiento al ciudadano puede acarrear, han ocasionado por un lado, espacios “gueto” de carácter casi anárquico y, por el otro lado, lugares tan institucionalizados que derivan en espacios asociados a la administración y ajenos al ciudadano. Por ello, se considera imprescindible la colaboración entre ambos poderes. De acuerdo con el discurso que precede, dentro de un marco comparativo, se estudian 5 supuestos seleccionados de las ciudades Madrid y Zaragoza. Madrid porque es referencia nacional e internacional en el desarrollo urbano a través de procesos ‘abajo arriba’. Zaragoza porque es una ciudad ‘media’ que históricamente no se ha definido por estrategias urbanas claras, ya sean de carácter social o institucional. Sin embargo, en el momento actual se pueden identificar planteamientos relacionados con la recuperación de construcciones y espacios vacantes que pueden ser determinantes a la hora de alcanzar equilibrios con los intensos procesos institucionales acaecidos en las dos últimas décadas. De los procesos urbanos registrados en cada lugar, desarrollados en construcciones y espacios vacantes, he seleccionado: Construcciones Vacantes Madrid |Tabacalera de Lavapiés Zaragoza | Antiguo I.E.S. Luis Buñuel y antiguo Convento de Mínimos Espacios Vacantes Madrid | Campo de Cebada [solar] Zaragoza | Patio ‘antiguo I.E.S. Luis Buñuel [espacio libre] y plaza Eduardo Ibarra [espacio libre] El proyecto de investigación ha partido de las hipótesis de partida que siguen: UNA… Las ‘acciones de abajo arriba’ o renovación desde abajo no tienen cabida como elementos urbanos aislados sino conectados entre sí, posibilitando la producción de sinergias y la construcción de la ciudad; pudiendo ser consideradas acciones de desarrollo y enlace urbano, pues su objetivo es convertirse en motores del espacio público. Cuestión que es aplicable al resto de los procesos o acciones urbanas [‘horizontales’ o ‘institucionales’] DOS… La capacidad de adaptación manifestada por las ‘acciones de abajo arriba’ implica un marco ideológico de referencia asociado a la importancia de la construcción con mínimos recursos [Re-ocupación y/o Re- Construcción de estructuras urbanas en desuso] en los procesos urbanos descritos, como vía para comprender los concepto sostenibilidad y calidad figurativa de lo construido. Cuestión que es aplicable a la recuperación de aquellos aspectos de la arquitectura que la convierten en necesaria para la sociedad. Y tiene como objetivo: Identificar modelos de sostenibilidad urbana como una estrategia que va de lo individual a lo colectivo y que se transmite fundamentalmente con la acción, mezclando la innovación y la tecnología en múltiples ámbitos, utilizando los recursos naturales e intelectuales de una manera eficiente y entendiendo la inteligencia humana y sobre todo la inteligencia colectiva, como principio y justificación. Se han analizado los siguientes aspectos: sociales [participación ciudadana e implicación de la administración pública], urbanos [conexiones con otros colectivos o espacios urbanos / transformaciones urbanas a través de los procesos de gestión utilizados], constructivos [materiales utilizados en la re-construcción de construcciones y espacios vacantes / sistemas constructivos utilizados] y los relacionados con la sostenibilidad [sostenibilidad económica / sostenibilidad de mantenimiento / sostenibilidad funcional / inteligencia colectiva] El estudio de los aspectos considerados se ha desarrollado con las herramientas metodológicas siguientes: Entrevistas abiertas a expertos: se han obtenido respuestas de 25 personas expertas [5 por cada espacio o construcción vacante] relacionadas con las acciones urbanas sostenibles, la cultura y las relaciones sociales, y que también conocen los lugares y su entorno desde los puntos de vista urbano y construido. Son ‘tipos ideales’ asociados a uno de los cinco poderes que se manifiestan en la ciudad: el poder educativo [la universidad], el poder creativo [la cultura], el poder administrativo [la política], el poder empresarial [la empresa privada] y los usuarios [un usuario activo y representativo de cada lugar elegido que haya intervenido en la gestación del proceso]. Han sido personas que conocían el tejido social y urbano de la ciudad de Zaragoza y Madrid, ya que la herramienta ‘entrevista abierta a expertos’, recoge datos y opiniones planteadas en las construcciones y espacios vacantes ubicados en Zaragoza y Madrid. Entrevistas cerradas a usuarios: como la población de usuarios que se somete a la investigación es infinita o muy grande, resulta imposible o inconveniente realizar la obtención de los datos sobre todos aquellos elementos que la forman. Por lo tanto, he decidido estudiar sólo una parte de la población que denomino ‘tipos ideales’, obteniendo respuestas de 150 usuarios [30 personas por cada espacio o construcción vacante]. La selección de grupos de personas entrevistadas, debe permitir que los resultados sean representativos de la población total de usuarios. Además, la elección de ‘tipos ideales’ se ha identificado con los vecinos de los núcleos urbanos [o barrios] en los que se ubican las construcciones o espacios vacantes analizados. Observación estructurada: recoger información a través de la observación me ha permitido conocer las actuaciones y comportamientos de los ciudadanos en el medio urbano. Esto ha facilitado el estudio del medio a nivel práctico, valorando el uso que la sociedad da a las construcciones y a los espacios vacantes analizados. Es importante posicionar la estrategia en relación con el tema de investigación propuesto. Una estrategia que dibuje un panorama plural, desarrollado a través de herramientas sociales y constructivas que permitan que la arquitectura hable de cosas parecidas a lo que interesa a la ciudadanía. Para ello, propuse un catálogo de herramientas arquitectónicas que han permitido evaluar todas las propuestas. Un contexto de estrategias comunes que han descrito con los mismos códigos las distintas actuaciones analizadas. Estas herramientas tocan diferentes campos de interés. Desde las partes más tectónicas y constructivas, hasta las más ligadas con el desarrollo urbanístico y social. Acciones de participación colectiva: Experiencias o laboratorios urbanos participados por los alumnos del grado de arquitectura de la UNIZAR y los agentes sociales. Las acciones son una herramienta propositiva. Investigar y analizar proponiendo ha permitido que el análisis del contexto pueda llegar a capas de mucha más profundidad. No se ha trabajado estableciendo jerarquías de profesores y alumnos, sino que se ha intentado posibilitar la conexión de distintos agentes que trabajan coordinadamente durante el tiempo que han durado las acciones. Por un lado esto ha permite que cada integrante haya aportado al grupo lo que mejor sabe hacer y de la misma manera, que cada uno pueda aprender aquello de lo que tenga más ganas… y reflexionar sobre determinados aspectos objeto del análisis. Una vez interpretados los resultados, obtenidos a través de las herramientas metodológicas referenciadas, se ha concluido lo que sigue: Respecto de la Hipótesis de partida UNO LAS ACCIONES ‘ABAJO ARRIBA’ han revelado que no se puede entender ningún proceso de gestión urbana fuera de la participación ciudadana. El ‘ESPACIO LIBRE’ de una ciudad necesita lugares de autogestión, espacios de cogestión, movimientos de ‘arriba abajo’ y también modelos que todavía no sabemos ni que existen. LAS ACCIONES INSTITUCIONALES ‘ARRIBA ABAJO’ han demostrado que no han presentado permeabilidad ni relación con las circulaciones de entorno. Tampoco han tenido en cuenta a otras muchas personas, ‘usuarios productores’, a las que les interesan los procesos de búsqueda y las fórmulas de conexión más interactivas. Respecto de la hipótesis de partida DOS LAS ACCIONES ‘ABAJO ARRIBA’ han revelado que el ‘derecho a la ciudad’, paradigma defendido por Lefebvre desde el cual se piensa el urbanismo ciudadano, en estos supuestos podría entenderse como el ‘derecho a la infraestructura’. El ESPACIO LIBRE es infraestructura y se quiere para infraestructurar los derechos de cada uno. Y aunque también es verdad que estas acciones son simples destellos, han hecho visible otro paradigma de gestión y propuesta urbana que puede ser predominante en un futuro próximo. LAS ACCIONES INSTITUCIONALES ‘ARRIBA ABAJO’ han revelado que las intervenciones estuvieron enfocadas únicamente a la resolución de los procesos constructivos y a la incorporación del programa como un dato ‘problema’ que era necesario resolver para evitar la afección al diseño. ABSTRACT The new urban ways of behaviour let us watch more and more frequently in our streets and squares, realities that we had always considered as domestic. This also happens the other way round. Every day we have to go through situations at home which imply relationships with people who don’t belong to our family circle. The domestic design of our cities and the urban planning of indoor design seem to be adequate tools in the world we have to live in. This leads us to think that public and private spaces are simplified terms, defined according to concepts of property in order to organise the city. On the other hand, its uses and the experiences of people, its management and ways of behaviour is now more complex, changing the conventional terminology that has become outdated. In this context, ‘bottom-up’ actions arise as a new paradigm or model of urban renewal. These actions consider the active role of social participation in the process of building up the city from the very beginning, in comparison with the former way of acting that considered the user as mere receptor of the proposals. A citizen who seems to become more and more radical, and an administration that seems to be afraid of the unknown, have created both almost anarchic ghetto spaces and, on the other hand, spaces which have been so institutionalised that derive into areas associated to the administration but alienated from the citizen. For this reason, cowork of both forces is considered as crucial. In accordance with the above mentioned ideas and within a comparative framework, five situations chosen from the cities of Madrid and Zaragoza are studied. Madrid because is a national and international reference in urban development that uses “bottom-up” processes. Zaragoza because is a “medium-size” city that, historically, has not been defined by clear social or institutional urban strategies. Nevertheless, at the present time we can identify approaches on the recovery of constructions and empty areas that may be determining for reaching a balance with the intense institutional processes that have taken place in the two last decades. From the urban processes registered in every place and developed in vacant areas and constructions, I have chosen: Vacant constructions Madrid | Lavapiés Tobacco Factory Zaragoza | Old Secondary School Luis Buñuel and old Convent of the Minimos Vacant areas Madrid | Campo de Cebada [non-built site]. Zaragoza | Old courtyard of the secondary school and Eduardo Ibarra square [free space] The research project has been issued from the following starting hypotheses: ONE… “Bottom-up actions” or renewal from below have no place as isolated urban elements but as connected parts that can produce synergies and the construction of the city, and that can also be considered as actions producing urban development and links. This can also be applied to the rest of urban processes or actions [‘horizontal’ or ‘institutional’]. TWO… The capacity of adaptation shown by “bottom-up actions” implies an ideological framework of reference which is related to the importance of construction with minimal resources (re-occupation and/or reconstruction of urban structures in disuse) in the above mentioned urban processes, as a way for understanding the concepts of sustainability and the representational quality of what has been constructed. This can also be applied to the recovery of those architectural aspects that make architecture necessary for society. And its objective is: Identify models of urban sustainability as a strategy going from the individual to the collective, which are mainly transferred by action and that mix innovation and technology in many fields. Models that use natural and intellectual resources in an efficient way, and understand human intelligence and, above all, collective intelligence, as principle and justification. The following aspects have been analysed: social [civic participation and involvement of the public Administration], urban [connections with other collectives or urban spaces / urban transformation by the processes of administration used], constructive [materials used for the re-construction of empty spaces / construction systems used] and those focusing on sustainability [economic sustainability /maintenance sustainability /functional sustainability / collective intelligence]. For researching into the above mentioned aspects, the following methodological tools have been developed: Open interviews with experts: answers from 25 experts have been obtained [five for every vacant space or empty construction] on sustainable urban actions, culture and social relations, who also know the places and their environment from an urban and constructive point of view. These are “ideal types” linked to one of the five powers acting in the city: the educational power [University], the creative power [culture], the administration power [politics], the corporate power [private companies] and the users [an active and representative user for every place selected during the establishment of the process]. They were people who knew the social and urban fabric of Zaragoza and Madrid, since the “open interview for experts” tool collects data and points of view set out in vacant constructions and spaces of Zaragoza and Madrid. Close interviews with users: as the number of users targeted for the research is very big or infinite, it is impossible or inconvenient to get data from all its constituent parts. Therefore, I have decided to research into the part of the population that I call “ideal types”, obtaining answers from 150 users [30 people for every empty space or construction]. The selection of the groups of people interviewed must produce results which are representative of the total population of users. Furthermore, the election of “ideal types” has been identified with the inhabitants of urban areas [or city districts] in which the vacant spaces or constructions analysed are located. A structured observation: I have known the actions and ways of behaving of the citizens in the urban environment by means of collecting information after observation. Therefore, the practical research into the target environment has been easier by valuing the use that society gives to the empty constructions and spaces analysed. It is important to position the strategy with respect to the research subject proposed. It involves a strategy able to get an overview of a plural landscape, developed by social and constructive tools, allowing architecture to talk about topics which are interesting for city dwellers. Therefore, I proposed a set of architectural tools to evaluate all the proposals. A context of common strategies describing the different actions analysed by using the same codes. These tools focus on different fields of interests, from the most tectonic and constructive parts, to the most related to urban and social development. Actions on collective participation: experiences or urban laboratories shared by the students of architecture of the University of Zaragoza and social agents. The actions are a proactive tool. Researching and analysing by means of proposing, has allowed me to analyse the context and much deeper layers. This work has not been done by establishing ranks of professors and student, but trying to get an interaction between the different agents who work in close coordination during the implementation of the actions. This has allowed every agent to contribute the group what they do the best, and also every individual has had the possibility to learn what s/he prefers…, thinking about the different aspects targeted by the analysis. Once the different methodological tools have been interpreted, this is the conclusion: With regard to the initial hypothesis ONE “BOTTOM-UP” ACTIONS have proven that no process of urban management can be understood outside civic participation. The “FREE SPACE” of a city needs self-managed places, co-managed spaces, “up-bottom” movements, and also models whose existence is still ignored. “UP-BOTTOM” INSTITUTIONAL ACTIONS have proven that they have not presented neither permeability nor relation with local ideas. They have also disregarded many other people, the “usersproducers”, who are interested in the most interactive means of searching and connecting processes. With regard to the initial hypothesis TWO Under these premises, “BOTTOM-UP” ACTIONS have shown that the “right to the city”, a paradigm defended by Lefebvre and from which citizen-focused urbanism is conceived, could be considered as a “right to the infrastructures”. A FREE SPACE is an infrastructure and must be used to “infrastructure” the rights of every citizen. And, even though it is true that these actions are mere flashes, they have made visible another paradigm of management and urban proposal that can be prevailing in a near future. “UP-BOTTOM” INSTITUTIONAL ACTIONS have revealed that the interventions have only focused on resolving construction processes and the incorporation of the program as a “problem” data that was necessary to resolve in order to avoid its influence on the design.

SMART, a simple modular architecture research tool: Identification of signaling domains

Accurate multiple alignments of 86 domains that occur in signaling proteins have been constructed and used to provide a Web-based tool (SMART: simple modular architecture research tool) that allows rapid identification and annotation of signaling domain sequences. The majority of signaling proteins are multidomain in character with a considerable variety of domain combinations known. Comparison with established databases showed that 25% of our domain set could not be deduced from SwissProt and 41% could not be annotated by Pfam. SMART is able to determine the modular architectures of single sequences or genomes; application to the entire yeast genome revealed that at least 6.7% of its genes contain one or more signaling domains, approximately 350 greater than previously annotated. The process of constructing SMART predicted (i) novel domain homologues in unexpected locations such as band 4.1-homologous domains in focal adhesion kinases; (ii) previously unknown domain families, including a citron-homology domain; (iii) putative functions of domain families after identification of additional family members, for example, a ubiquitin-binding role for ubiquitin-associated domains (UBA); (iv) cellular roles for proteins, such predicted DEATH domains in netrin receptors further implicating these molecules in axonal guidance; (v) signaling domains in known disease genes such as SPRY domains in both marenostrin/pyrin and Midline 1; (vi) domains in unexpected phylogenetic contexts such as diacylglycerol kinase homologues in yeast and bacteria; and (vii) likely protein misclassifications exemplified by a predicted pleckstrin homology domain in a Candida albicans protein, previously described as an integrin.

Speech technology in 2001: new research directions.

Research in speech recognition and synthesis over the past several decades has brought speech technology to a point where it is being used in "real-world" applications. However, despite the progress, the perception remains that the current technology is not flexible enough to allow easy voice communication with machines. The focus of speech research is now on producing systems that are accurate and robust but that do not impose unnecessary constraints on the user. This chapter takes a critical look at the shortcomings of the current speech recognition and synthesis algorithms, discusses the technical challenges facing research, and examines the new directions that research in speech recognition and synthesis must take in order to form the basis of new solutions suitable for supporting a wide range of applications.

Sea lions, sacrifice, and ritual : The symbolism of Moche Island imagery

The Mochica, or Moche (c. 100-800 AD) culture, flourished along the northern Peruvian coast. The Moche did not have a formal written language; as such, contemporary scholars base their analysis on Moche iconography and archaeological burial remains. Especially renown for their ceramic artistry, Moche vessels exhibit a wide range of subject matter, including animal and enigmatic figural representations that evoke terrestrial, marine and possibly, spiritual realms. While research has focused on political organization and the interrelationship between sacrifice and warfare, many marine themes have not been fully explored in the discourse. An exploration of sea lion imagery and sacrifice themes suggests that the marine mammals were ritually hunted. A careful iconographic analysis of island scenes demonstrates ritual and gender affiliations held by the Moche about sea lions. In a multi-disciplinary approach, scientific, archaeological and ethnographic resources substantiate this claim.