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The construction sector has always occupied a strategic place in the European economy. The European construction industry suffered during the 2007&ndash, 2008 global financial crisis, and today the sector is undergoing a recovery process. Among all the construction subsectors, civil engineering has the highest growth rate. Currently, the sector has to face profound industrial changes emerging with digital transformations (Industry 4.0), sustainability, climate change and energy efficiency. To promote the growth of the civil engineering sector and accelerate the recovery, we need to create a highly qualified and competent workforce that can handle the challenges coming up with the technological progress and global competitiveness. The main condition to achieve this capable workforce is to define the expected evolution of skills requirements. For that purpose, our work focuses on identifying current and near-future key skills required by the civil engineering occupations. To achieve this, we developed an automated sectoral database for the current and near-future skills requirements of the selected professional profiles. It is our belief that this sectoral database is a fundamental framework that will guide the sector through the future changes. We also believe that our research can be used as a key tool for construction companies, policy-makers, academics and training centers to develop well-designed and efficient training programs for upskilling and reskilling the workforce.

The new paradigm of distributed energy generation is bringing the need of the development of new local management grid systems, also called micro-grids. However, their economic profitability it’s still uncertain. Accordingly, this paper develops a techno-economic assessment of the micro-grid by calculating the Levelized Cost of Electricity of the energy generation plant inside the micro-grid. The studied energy generation plant counts with a solar energy generation, wind energy generation and a lithium ion battery-based energy storage. The research work considers as certain the solar energy generation, the wind energy generation and the energy consumption based on data collected all over the 2017. However, it takes as uncertain the energy evolution and replacement of the batteries. The whole micro-grid that integrates the electric, thermal and aging behavior of the batteries is simulated in order to calculate those uncertain variables under different battery operation criteria and battery thermal management systems. As result, this paper presents a high accurate and detailed cost assessment for different battery operation scenarios, where the most profitable combination of thermal management and battery operation criteria are obtained.

Mestrado em Actuarial Science The changes that the Affordable Care Act introduced to the US health insurance market have entirely altered the traditional ratemaking process. Precisely, the cre ation of statewide community rating schemes and a guaranteed issue has facilitated insurance coverage to the high-risk population, leading to massive changes in risk pool compositions. The implementation of Risk Adjustment has neutralized some of the consequences of limiting premium variation in the market. However, setting appropriate rate levels has remained cumbersome due to the uncertainty about the statewide risk pool. Many insurers, who could not quantify the health risk associ ated with the statewide yearly enrollment, had to face unexpectedly high payments on risk equalization. Natsis (2019) stated that in this environment, the use of tradi tional univariate techniques to project statewide health care costs could be potentially misleading. This thesis proposes a Bayesian approach to reflect important sources of uncertainty over statewide actuarial estimates. The aggregate loss is modeled with a novel collective risk model based on a Generalized Beta Prime (GBP) distribution, accounting for long tail risks and changes in risk pool compositions. The GBP is presented with a mean-dispersion parametrization, which allows the introduction of a hierarchical prior specification over the state-specific means. This parameter struc ture, responsible of quantifying uncertainty and sharing information among states, is a cornerstone of the adopted collective risk model. Using the Commercial Health Care data extract published by the Society of Actuaries (2019), the model is applied on the Surgical and Transplant service category. The resulting heavy-tailed posteri ors of the nationwide service means illustrate the high variation of inpatient medical costs. Moreover, the posteriors of the statewide aggregate claims remain highly right skewed, reflecting the risk of facing sicker populations and high-cost treatments at individual claim level. As alterações que o Affordable Care Act introduziu tiveram um impacto significativo no processo de tarifação de seguros de saúde nos Estados Unidos. De forma mais precisa, a criação de um sistema de tarifação regulado, e com cobertura garantida, facilitou o acesso de seguro à população de risco. A inclusão destes indivıduos originou grandes alterações na composição dos grupos de risco de cada estado. A implementação da metodologia do Risk Adjustment neutralizou algumas das consequências de restringir as variações de prémios no mercado. No entanto, a estimativa dos níveis de prémios permaneceu complicada devido à incerteza dos riscos coletivos. Muitas seguradoras, que não foram capazes de quantificar corretamente o risco de saúde associado à carteira anual do estado, depararam-se inesperadamente com pagamentos muito altos do Risk Adjustment. De facto, Natsis (2019) afirmou que a utilização de técnicas univariadas para projectar os custos médicos neste novo panorama pode produzir resultados enganadores. Nesta tese propomos uma abordagem bayesiana ao problema que pretende incorporar as diversas formas de incerteza presentes em estimativas actuariais ao nível estadual. Implementamos um modelo de risco inovador, baseado na distribuição beta-linha generalizada (BLG), distribuição esta que é capaz de acomodar caudas pesadas e heterogeneidade na composição dos grupos de risco. Apresentamos uma parametrização da distribuição BLG baseada na média e na dispersão, o que permite introduzir uma estrutura paramétrica hierárquica no custo médio. Esta estrutura de parâmetros é a base do modelo para quantificar a incerteza e partilhar informações entre diferentes estados. Utilizando um subconjunto dos dados publicados pela Society of Actuaries em 2019, denominados Commercial Health Care Data, implementamos o nosso modelo no contexto dos custos associados à categoria Surgical and Transplant. Mostramos que a variabilidade nos custos médicos hospitalares de doentes internados conduz a distribuições das médias nacionais a posteriori com caudas mais pesadas. Adicionalmente, as distribuições a posteriori dos sinistros agregados apresentam um enviezamento à direita muito pronunciado, reflectindo a inclusão no mercado de indivíduos pouco saudáaveis e com custos de tratamentos muito altos. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Purpose Laparoscopic ventral rectopexy is the most favored surgical treatment for rectal prolapse. Perineal approaches are recommended for frail patients and those with major comorbidities, and in young men to avoid genitourinary disorders. There are very few descriptions in the literature of transanal endoscopic surgery to treat complete rectal prolapse. The aim of this article is to describe our experience with this technique. Patients and methods Patients undergoing transanal endoscopic surgery for rectal prolapse repair between 2010 and 2019 were recruited for the study. Preoperative, surgical, and postoperative variables were recorded. Surgical technique, 30-day morbidity and follow-up are described. Results Five patients have been included. The postoperative period was uneventful and all patients were discharged in 48 hours without complications. All showed improved symptoms at 1-year control, and none presented recurrence in a mean follow-up period of 6 years. Conclusions The transanal endoscopic procedure allows improved endoscopic vision, and the reconstruction is performed transpelvically by fixing the anastomosis suture to the pelvic wall to prevent recurrence. Therefore, we think it is a valid alternative to other perineal procedures in patients in whom abdominal surgery is contraindicated.

Shwachman-Diamond syndrome (SDS) is characterized by exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, neutropenia, and skeletal abnormalities. Biallelic mutations in SBDS, which encodes a ribosome maturation factor, are found in 90% of SDS cases. Sbds–/– mice are embryonic lethal. Using CRISPR/Cas9 editing, we created sbds-deficient zebrafish strains. Sbds protein levels progressively decreased and became undetectable at 10 days postfertilization (dpf). Polysome analysis revealed decreased 80S ribosomes. Homozygous mutant fish developed normally until 15 dpf. Mutant fish subsequently had stunted growth and showed signs of atrophy in pancreas, liver, and intestine. In addition, neutropenia occurred by 5 dpf. Upregulation of tp53 mRNA did not occur until 10 dpf, and inhibition of proliferation correlated with death by 21 dpf. Transcriptome analysis showed tp53 activation through upregulation of genes involved in cell cycle arrest, cdkn1a and ccng1, and apoptosis, puma and mdm2. However, elimination of Tp53 function did not prevent lethality. Because of growth retardation and atrophy of intestinal epithelia, we studied the effects of starvation on WT fish. Starved WT fish showed intestinal atrophy, zymogen granule loss, and tp53 upregulation — similar to the mutant phenotype. In addition, there was reduction in neutral lipid storage and ribosomal protein amount, similar to the mutant phenotype. Thus, loss of Sbds in zebrafish phenocopies much of the human disease and is associated with growth arrest and tissue atrophy, particularly of the gastrointestinal system, at the larval stage. A variety of stress responses, some associated with Tp53, contribute to pathophysiology of SDS., Loss of ribosome maturation factor sbds in the zebrafish phenocopies human Shwachman-Diamond syndrome and is associated with p53 activation, but lethality cannot be rescued by p53 mutation.

The formation of a treaty will often involve actors and acts beyond the parties and their communications inter se. This chapter analyses two of the most prominent examples of this phenomenon: (i) the role of the depositary of a multilateral treaty; and (ii) the obligation to register with the UN Secretariat bilateral and multilateral treaties and treaty formalities. The role of the depositary traditionally commences with the adoption of the treaty text that designates it as such. At that moment, the provisions regulating the legal procedures for the treaty to come into existence — the so-called ‘final clauses’ or ‘final provisions’ — become effective. Following adoption of a treaty’s text, the depositary normally prepares the original treaty. As the original must include all authentic languages, the text in all authentic languages must be submitted to the depositary.

Calculating adequate vehicle routes for collecting municipal waste is still an unsolved issue, even though many solutions for this process can be found in the literature. A gap still exists between academics and practitioners in the field. One of the apparent reasons why this rift exists is that academic tools often are not easy to handle and maintain by actual users. In this work, the problem of municipal waste collection is modeled using a simple but efficient and especially easy to maintain solution. Real data have been used, and it has been solved using a Genetic Algorithm (GA). Computations have been done in two different ways: using a complete random initial population, and including a seed in this initial population. In order to guarantee that the solution is efficient, the performance of the genetic algorithm has been compared with another well-performing algorithm, the Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS). Three problems of different sizes have been solved and, in all cases, a significant improvement has been obtained. A total reduction of 40% of itineraries is attained with the subsequent reduction of emissions and costs. This research was funded by Fundación BBK, partner of the Deusto Digital Industry Chair.

The food industry has recently faced rapid and constant changes due to the current industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, which has also profoundly altered the dynamics of the industry overall. Due to the emerging digitalisation, manufacturing models are changing through the use of smart technologies, such as robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, etc. They are experiencing a new phase of automation that enables innovative and more efficient processes, products and services. The introduction of these novel business models demands new professional skills requirements in the workforce of the food industry. In this work, we introduce an industry-driven proactive strategy to achieve a successful digital transformation in the food sector. For that purpose, we focus on defining the current and near-future key skills and competencies demanded by each of the professional profiles related to the food industry. To achieve this, we generated an automated database of current and future professions and competencies and skills. This database can be used as a fundamental roadmap guiding the sector through future changes caused by Industry 4.0. The interest shown by the local sectorial cluster and related entities reinforce the idea. This research will be a key tool for both academics and policy-makers to provide well-developed and better-oriented continuous training programs in order to reduce the skill mismatch between the workforce and the jobs. This research was co-funded by Fundación BBK–BBK fundazioa, partner of the Deusto Digital Industry Chair.

This work presents the results obtained from a spatial modeling and analysis process on pollutants measured in the air through forty-three monitoring stations located in the three provinces of the Basque Autonomous Community (Spain). The pollutants measured correspond to the set of nitrogen oxides (nitric oxide, NO, nitrogen dioxide, NO 2, and nitrogen oxides, NO x ) and atmospheric particulate matter with a diameter less than or equal to 10 micrometers (PM 10 ). The objective of this work was to generate a map of the pollutants that exhaustively covers the entire area of the Basque Autonomous Community using geostatistical techniques, in such a way that it serves as a basis for short and midterm environmental studies.

En España, la ejecución de las sentencias del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos se ha encontrado con el principal problema de que en nuestro derecho interno, como (en un principio) en el del resto de estados miembros del Convenio, no existía cauce alguno que permitiese rescindir una sentencia firme cuando el tribunal había declarado que con la misma o en el proceso que la precedía se había violado algún derecho del convenio, lo que era y es muchas veces el único modo de conseguir la restitutio in integrum. Ha sido necesario un largo recorrido jurisprudencial que ha ido analizando las circunstancias que debían concurrir para que se pudiese anular una sentencia nacional firme en base a una del TEDH; así como la viabilidad de los distintos cauces procesales usados por los particulares para intentarlo, llegando a la conclusión de que, tal como estaban configurados, ninguno de ellos podía ser el idóneo y definitivo; hasta que, finalmente, a través de las leyes 7/2015 de 21 de julio y 41/2015, de 5 de octubre se articuló la existencia de una sentencia condenatoria del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos como motivo expreso de revisión. Queda por ver si el medio escogido fue el más adecuado y si la reforma operada por estas leyes terminó con todos los problemas que la ejecución de las sentencias del tribunal de Estrasburgo puede suscitar. Abstract: In Spain, the enforcement of the judgements of the European Court of Human Rights has encountered the main problem of the fact that in our domestic law, as (in principle) happened in the other member states of the Convention, there was no way to rescind a final judgement when the european court had declared that some right of the agreement had been violated in the same sentence or in the process that preceed it, which was and is often the only way to obtain restitutio in integrum. A long jurisprudential journey has been necessary to analyze the circumstances needed in order to anull a firm national judgement based on a sentence of the european court, as well as the feasibility of the various procedural channels used by individuals to attempt it, reaching the conclusion that, as they were configured, none of them could be the right or definitive; until, finally, through laws 7/2015, of July 21 and 41/2015, of October 5, the existence of a conviction by the European Court of Human Rights was articulated as an express reason for revision. Remains to check if the way chosen was the most appropriate and if the reform done by these laws ended with all the problems that the execution of the judgments of the Strasbourg court can raise. Grado en Derecho

In recent times, new learning methodologies known as student-based methodologies have been introduced to simplify the learning process for the students and facilitate the acquisition of skills for them. Among them, problem based learning (PBL) and project-based learning (PjBL) are widely used methods in the world of education. Real case solving (RCS) is a variant of the PBL where students solve real cases through the application of the PBL methodology. RCS seems to be a relevant approach for educators, but it has an apparently limited implementation degree at the academic level. This article presents the successful implementation of four different RCS approaches in the lecturing process in five different classes in the engineering degree of University of Deusto. The initiative has been analyzed both quantitative and qualitatively, the overall performance and success rate of the students were compared with the ones acquired from conventional teaching methods. The results were found to be promising, demonstrating a significantly better performance than the traditional teaching methodologies. The successful results encouraged the university to continue working further in this direction.

In 1612 Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, first count of Gondomar, was appointed Spanish ambassador to London, where he proved essential for the fostering of Anglo-Spanish relations and promoted the marriage negotiations between the Prince of Wales and the Spanish Infanta. However, when in 1623 these negotiations failed, popular animosity reached a high point. This chapter focuses on some of the most poignant anti-Spanish propaganda produced against Gondomar by the Protestant preacher Thomas Scott (d. 1626). [...] Nonetheless, premodern propaganda did not lack interpretative complexity. Behind the hateful disparagements, a dash of admiration for Sarmiento’s diplomacy is tangible. Moreover, one can also appreciate Scott engaging with Spanish culture.

The changes that the Affordable Care Act introduced to the US health insurance market have entirely altered the traditional ratemaking process. Precisely, the creation of statewide community rating schemes and a guaranteed issue has facilitated insurance coverage to the high-risk population, leading to massive changes in risk pool compositions. The implementation of Risk Adjustment has neutralized some of the consequences of limiting premium variation in the market. However, setting appropriate rate levels has remained cumbersome due to the uncertainty about the statewide risk pool. Many insurers, who could not quantify the health risk associated with the statewide yearly enrollment, had to face unexpectedly high payments on risk equalization. Natsis (2019) stated that in this environment, the use of traditional univariate techniques to project statewide health care costs could be potentially misleading. This thesis proposes a Bayesian approach to reflect important sources of uncertainty over statewide actuarial estimates. The aggregate loss is modeled with a novel collective risk model based on a Generalized Beta Prime (GBP) distribution, accounting for long tail risks and changes in risk pool compositions. The GBP is presented with a mean-dispersion parametrization, which allows the introduction of a hierarchical prior specification over the state-specific means. This parameter structure, responsible of quantifying uncertainty and sharing information among states, is a cornerstone of the adopted collective risk model. Using the Commercial Health Care data extract published by the Society of Actuaries (2019), the model is applied on the Surgical and Transplant service category. The resulting heavy-tailed posteriors of the nationwide service means illustrate the high variation of inpatient medical costs. Moreover, the posteriors of the statewide aggregate claims remain highly right-skewed, reflecting the risk of facing sicker populations and high-cost treatments at individual claim level.

En el Control de los motores síncronos de imanes permanentes (PMSM) es fundamental conocer los parámetros del mismo motor, los cuales cambian, bien sea por la corriente de los devanados o por la temperatura de estos. En la actualidad el método utilizado para saber estos parámetros es el uso de Look-Up- tables (LUT). Aunque este método es un método eficaz tiene varios problemas. Como por ejemplo la gran necesidad de memoria necesaria para almacenar estas tablas o la poca precisión que puedan tener estas, pues para ser mas precisas se necesita una mayor memoria. Es por eso por lo que surge la necesidad de la estimación de los parámetros. Estos parámetros de los que estamos hablando son:- Resistencia de fase del devanado del motor (R)- Flujo de los imanes permanentes del motor (ɸ)- Inductancia equivalente en el eje d (Ld)- Inductancia equivalente en el eje q (Lq)En el presente TFG se ha desarrollado el estudio de una estrategia de estimación de parámetros para ser utilizada posteriormente en el control de motores síncronos de imanes permanentes.

Este proyecto forma parte de un proyecto mayor: Diseño del cargador de baterías de 600W de la empresa Epic Power Converters. En él, se quiere diseñar, enfocándose en la parte de potencia, el circuito rectificador de entrada del cargador. Primero se ha hecho un estado del arte de las diferentes topologías existentes hoy en día para la realización de un circuito con rectificación activa o "Power factor Correction" y las tecnologías semiconductoras que incorporan esos mismos circuitos. Posteriormente, se ha simulado tres de las etapas elegidas del estudio anterior: la Boost PFC, la Bridgeless PFC y la Totem-Pole PFC. Por último, se ha refinado el diseño (teniendo en cuenta cálculos térmicos) de la etapa elegida, que ha sido la Boost PFC, por su operatividad y bajo coste

Streptococcus pyogenes infections are common in the pediatric population in the form of tonsillopharyngitis or cutaneous disease. Less frequently, it presents with invasive forms such as pyomyositis or necrotizing fasciitis. Mortality in children is of 7 %. We present an 11-year-old patient with a subscapular venolymphatic malformation who consulted for febrile syndrome associated with pain and an acute increase in the size of the lesion. During the hospitalization, diagnosis of pyomyositis due to Streptococcus pyogenes was reached.

Neutrophils are the most common type of leukocyte in human circulating blood and constitute one of the chief mediators for innate immunity. Defined as a reduction from a normal distribution of values, neutropenia results from a number of congenital and acquired conditions. Neutropenia may be insignificant, temporary, or associated with a chronic condition with or without a vulnerability to life-threatening infections. As an inherited bone marrow failure syndrome, neutropenia may be associated with transformation to myeloid malignancy. Recognition of an inherited bone marrow failure syndrome may be delayed into adulthood. The list of monogenic neutropenia disorders is growing, heterogeneous, and bewildering. Furthermore, greater knowledge of immune-mediated and drug-related causes makes the diagnosis and management of neutropenia challenging. Recognition of syndromic presentations and especially the introduction of next-generation sequencing are improving the accuracy and expediency of diagnosis as well as their clinical management. Furthermore, identification of monogenic neutropenia disorders is shedding light on the molecular mechanisms of granulopoiesis and myeloid malignancies.

The autoimmune GFAP astrocytopathy has been associated with meningoencephalomyelitis that usually responds to glucocorticoids. We report a 20-year-old man that developed an acute and severe meningoencephalomyelitis with remarkable CNS hyperexcitability and oculogyric crises. CSF analysis showed hypoglycorrhachia, pleocytosis, elevated ADA, and CSF-immunofluorescence characteristic of autoimmune GFAP astrocytopathy. MRI showed lesions at thalamus, corpus-callosum, dorsal pons and dentate nucleus with associated myelitis. Immunotherapy led to a full recovery, although MRI activity was observed at follow-up. CNS hyperexcitability, typically seen in other immune-mediated syndromes, represents a novel presenting form to be included as part of the clinical spectrum of this entity.