Abstract: Project-Based Learning (PBL) is an educational strategy to improve student’s learning capability that, in recent years, has had a progressive acceptance in undergraduate studies. This methodology is based on solving a problem or project in a student working group. In this way, PBL focuses on learning the necessary tools to correctly find a solution to given problems. Since the learning initiative is transferred to the student, the PBL method promotes students own abilities. This allows a better assessment of the true workload that carries out the student in the subject. It follows that the methodology conforms to the guidelines of the Bologna document, which quantifies the student workload in a subject by means of the European credit transfer system (ECTS). PBL is currently applied in undergraduate studies needing strong practical training such as medicine, nursing or law sciences. Although this is also the case in engineering studies, amazingly, few experiences have been reported. In this paper we propose to use PBL in the educational organization of the Computer Graphics subjects in the Computer Science degree. Our PBL project focuses in the development of a C++ graphical environment based on the OpenGL libraries for visualization and handling of different graphical objects. The starting point is a basic skeleton that already includes lighting functions, perspective projection with mouse interaction to change the point of view and three predefined objects. Students have to complete this skeleton by adding their own functions to solve the project. A total number of 10 projects have been proposed and successfully solved. The exercises range from human face rendering to articulated objects, such as robot arms or puppets. In the present paper we extensively report the statement and educational objectives for two of the projects: solar system visualization and a chess game. We report our earlier educational experience based on the standard classroom theoretical, problem and practice sessions and the reasons that motivated searching for other learning methods. We have mainly chosen PBL because it improves the student learning initiative. We have applied the PBL educational model since the beginning of the second semester. The student’s feedback increases in his interest for the subject. We present a comparative study of the teachers’ and students’ workload between PBL and the classic teaching approach, which suggests that the workload increase in PBL is not as high as it seems.

Abstract: A main challenge in Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) is determining a termination condition ensuring stabilization close to the optimum in real-world applications. Although for known test functions distribution-based quantities are good candidates (as far as suitable parameters are used), in real-world problems an open question still remains unsolved. How can we estimate an upper-bound for the termination condition value ensuring a given accuracy for the (unknown) EA solution?
We claim that the termination problem would be fully solved if we defined a quantity (depending only on the EA output) behaving like the solution accuracy. The open question would be, then, satisfactorily answered if we had a model relating both quantities, since accuracy could be predicted from the alternative quantity. We present a statistical inference framework addressing two topics: checking the correlation between the two quantities and defining a regression model for predicting (at a given confidence level) accuracy values from the EA output.

Abstract: The operational model of agonism has been widely used for the analysis of agonist action since its formulation in 1983. The model includes the Em parameter, which is defined as the maximum response of the system. The methods for Em estimation provide Em values not significantly higher than the maximum responses achieved by full agonists. However, it has been found that that some classes of compounds as, for instance, superagonists and positive allosteric modulators can increase the full agonist maximum response, implying upper limits for Em and thereby posing doubts on the validity of Em estimates. Because of the correlation between Em and operational efficacy, τ, wrong Em estimates will yield wrong τ estimates.
In this presentation, the operational model of agonism and various methods for the simulation of allosteric modulation will be analyzed. Alternatives for curve fitting will be presented and discussed.