Rafael Palacios

• Ph.D.
• Comillas Pontifical University

Background Functional impairment is one of the most decisive prognostic factors in patients with complex chronic diseases. A more significant functional impairment indicates that the disease is progressing, which requires implementing diagnostic and therapeutic actions that stop the exacerbation of the disease. Objective This study aimed to predic...

This study suggests using wearable activity trackers to identify mobility patterns in chronic complex patients (CCPs) and investigate their relation with the Barthel index (BI) to assess functional decline. CCPs are individuals who suffer from multiple, chronic health conditions that often lead to a progressive decline in their functional capacity....

The increased use of wearables in recent years has fostered a great technological development in this area, although without the appropriate supervision usability may go first than security. In addition to this, the fact that wearables have been requiring more and more personal data from the user makes them attractive devices for an attacker. In th...

Background: Telemedicine creates the opportunity – in pandemic conditions and otherwise -- to spread health care to regions where intensivists and health services may not beavailable. It offers the opportunity to provide better patient care, decrease healthcare costs, and overall improve population health. Introduction: Critical care telemedicine h...

Asset Management is one of the foremost vital chapters within the power system's operation and, in general, within energy systems. Electric utilities are a capital-intensive industry with assets such as power transformers, power lines, and switch gears spread across a large geographic area. This paper will examine the business drivers, challenges,...

El incremento de uso de los wearables en los últimos años ha fomentado un desarrollo tecnológico en este ámbito que ha permitido la evolución de estos dispositivos a lo que actualmente conocemos. El hecho de que cada vez hayan ido requiriendo mayor cantidad de datos personales del usuario convierte a los wearables en dispositivos atractivos para un...

Increasing Uganda’s low electrification rate is one of the country’s major challenges. Power service is essential to achieve socioeconomic development and poverty reduction, especially in rural areas. This paper shows the advantages of using an integrated (grid and off-grid) electrification model with high geospatial, temporal, and customer-class g...

The detection and classification of threats in computer systems has been one of the main problems researched in Cybersecurity. As technology evolves, the tactics employed by adversaries have also become more sophisticated to evade detection systems. In consequence, systems that previously detected and classified those threats are now outdated. This...

BREACH is a side-channel attack to HTTPS that allows an attacker to obtain victims’ credentials under certain conditions. An attacker with a privileged position on the network can guess character by character a secret session key just by analyzing the size of the responses returned by the server over HTTPS and encrypted. Heal the Breach (HTB) is th...

This research is aimed to analyze textual descriptions of harassment situations collected anonymously by the Hollaback! project. Hollaback! is an international movement created to end harassment in all of its forms. Its goal is to collect stories of harassment through the web and a free app all around the world to elevate victims’ individual voices...

Objective To determine if providing teleneurology (TN) consultations aiding in determination of death by neurologic criteria (DNC) to a bedside intensivist is feasible; and whether timely access and expert input increases the quality of the DNC exam and identification of potential organ donors, we reviewed retrospective data related to outcomes of...

Society is experimenting changes in information consumption, as new information channels such as social networks let people share news that do not necessarily be trust worthy. Sometimes, these sources of information produce fake news deliberately with doubtful purposes and the consumers of that information share it to other users thinking that the...

Non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) has become an important subject of study, since it provides benefits to both consumers and utility companies. The analysis of smart meter signals is useful for identifying consumption patterns and user behaviors, in order to make predictions and optimizations to anticipate the use of electrical appliances at hom...

Society is experimenting changes in information consumption, as new information channels such as social networks let people share news that do not necessarily be trust worthy. Sometimes, these sources of information produce fake news deliberately with doubtful purposes and the consumers of that information share it to other users thinking that the...

The diagnosis of brain death and the determination of neurologic prognosis following cardiac arrest are important reasons for neurology consultation in the intensive care unit. In hospitals without access to neurology consultation, it may be challenging to address these important questions with high reliability in a timely manner. The American Acad...

In many parts of the world, access to basic electricity services remains a significant challenge. The status quo mode of electrification is central grid extension; however, in many areas, off-grid (OG) technologies like minigrids (MGs) and standalone (SA) systems are more suitable for promoting electricity access under cost constraints. Unfortunate...

In many parts of the world, access to basic electricity services remains a significant challenge. The status quo mode of electrification is central grid extension; however, in many areas offgrid technologies like mini-grids and stand-alone systems are more suitable for promoting electricity access under cost constraints. Unfortunately, these opport...

Social networks are being used by terrorist organizations to distribute messages with the intention of influencing people and recruiting new members. The research presented in this paper focuses on the analysis of Twitter messages to detect the leaders orchestrating terrorist networks and their followers. A big data architecture is proposed to anal...

El presente trabajo presenta los estudios teóricos y experimentales realizados hasta el presente sobre un sistema de bombeo de calor denominado Paramento Transparente Activo (PTA) sistema pensado para su uso entre otras en aplicaciones de climatización a través de los espacios acristalados en vivienda y locales, sustituyendo total o parcialmente la...

Background: A shortage of pediatricians and long wait times in the hospitals render more efficient follow-up visits increasingly important. Virtual visits between physician and patient offer a solution to this problem. Increased awareness, improved technology, and efficient scheduling methods will contribute to the quality and adoption of telemedic...

Safety is key to civil aviation. To further improve its already respectable safety records, the airline industry is transitioning towards a proactive approach which anticipates and mitigates risks before incidents occur. This approach requires continuous monitoring and analysis of flight operations; however, modern aircraft systems have become incr...

The airline industry is moving toward proactive risk management, which aims to identify and mitigate risks before accidents occur. However, existing methods for such efforts are limited. They rely on predefined criteria to identify risks, leaving emergent issues undetected. This paper presents a new method, cluster-based anomaly detection to detect...

Enhanced Traffic Management System (ETMS) stores all the information gathered by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) from aircraft flying in the US airspace. The data stored from each flight includes the 4D trajectory (latitude, longitude, altitude and timestamp), radar data and flight plan information. Unfortunately, there is a data quality...

Loss of Air Traffic Control (ATC) radio communication is considered a high consequence failure due to the potential increase in mid-air collision risk. An analysis was conducted to determine how quickly collision risk would increase after a full ATC communications failure, or blackout, to determine requirements for backup communication systems. The...

Most severe car accidents that occur in urban environments involve side impacts at street intersections, even at those regulated with traffic lights. Hence, it is very common to implement a small delay since one road changes to red until the other road changes to green. This delay is intended to avoid accidents in which a vehicle decides to go thro...

A method has been developed to support Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) by identifying anomalous flights based on onboard-recorded flight data using cluster analysis techniques. Unlike current techniques, the method does not require pre-defined thresholds of particular parameters, but detects data patterns which differ from the majority o...

Traffic lights at most road intersections operate on a fixed timing schedule that leads to suboptimal traffic management, with unnecessary delays, higher fuel consumption and higher emissions. Traffic management can be improved by installing inductive loops; however, installation involves temporary road closures, and high maintenance costs, especia...

This paper compares the estimated electromagnetic forces due to short circuits in power transformers using two computational models. The first model is based on approximate analytical expressions of the electromagnetic forces as they have been compiled in earlier versions of the IEC standard 60076-5. The second model is based on a finite element mo...

This paper describes a framework in which several tools have been integrated in order to help the maintenance planning in a power distribution network. This framework will help to improve the process of decision making in an asset management context of a power distribution company. Two kinds of tools have been developed, one has been oriented to th...

This paper presents a procedure that permits a qualitative evaluation of the stress in components of an electric power distribution system. The core of this procedure is the development of a set of models based on neural networks that are able to represent and to predict the normal behavior expected of the components under different working conditi...

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been investigating early warning accident prevention systems in an effort to prevent runway collisions. One system in place is the Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS), developed under contract for the FAA. AMASS internal logic is based on computing separation distances among airplanes, and it...

Manufacturers of commercial thermoelectric modules provide datasheets of the modules including information and graphs about the performance attained at several working conditions. Details about internal parameters are not made available to customers, because in the broad majority of the cases they are not necessary. However, when developing non-sta...

Stochastic programming usually represents uncertainty discretely by means of a scenario tree. This representation leads to an exponential growth of the size of stochastic mathematical problems when better accuracy is needed. Trying to solve the problem as a whole, considering all scenarios together, yields to huge memory requirements that surpass t...

Air traffic is increasing world wide at a steady annual rate, and airport congestion is already a major issue for air traffic managers. This paper presents a model based on neural networks to predict the position of aircraft on the airport, during landing or takeoff. The same model can also be used to predict the behavior of other vehicles moving o...

In the US and many other countries, bank checks are preprinted with the account number and the check number in special ink and format; as such, these two numeric fields can be easily read and processed using automated techniques. However, the amount fields on a filled-in check is usually read by human eyes, and involves significant time and cost, e...

Este artículo describe las aplicaciones fundamentales de la criptografía en la actualidad: cifrado y firma electrónica.Ambas aplicaciones son el núcleo del comercio electrónico y de cualquier transacción segura que se realice por Internet.También se introduce el concepto de certificado digital y su importancia para garantizar la seguridad, así como...

In recent years, a number of large–scale applications continue to rely heavily on the use of paper as the dominant medium, either on intra-organization basis or on inter-organization basis, including paper intensive applications in the check processing application. In many countries, the value of each check is read by human eyes before the check is...

In recent years, a number of large-scale applications continue to rely heavily on the use of paper as the dominant medium, either on intra-organization basis or on inter-organization basis, including paper intensive applications in the check processing application. In many countries, the value of each check is read by human eyes before the check is...

In spite of rapid evolution of electronic techniques, a number of large-scale applications continue to rely on the use of paper as the dominant medium. This is especially true for processing of bank checks. This paper examines the issue of reading the numerical amount field. In the case of checks, the segmentation of unconstrained strings into indi...

While reading handwritten text accurately is a difficult task for computers, the conversion of handwritten papers into digital format is necessary for automatic processing. Since most bank checks are handwritten, the number of checks is very high, and manual processing involves significant expenses, many banks are interested in systems that can rea...

One of the most promising applications of thermoelectricity is the recovery of waste heat for the production of electrical energy. Nowadays, several thermoelectric companies manufacture commercial thermoelectric modules (TEMs) based on Bi₂Te₃ compounds specially designed to perform as Seebeck modules.. This paper describes a t...

The processing of bank checks is one application that continues to rely heavily on the movement of paper. Checks are currently read by human eyes and physically transported to the bank of the payer, involving significant time and cost. Since paper checks constitute a popular mechanism for noncash payments, and the volume of checks continues to be h...

This paper describes a system designed to take actions o a remote building using an old PC with Internet connection.It is based on a card that uses several relays to close independent circuits.The card is connected to the PC parallel port that receives the orders from Internet.The system has been applied to open the door of an office from another b...

While reading handwritten text accurately is a difficult task for computers, the conversion of handwritten papers into digital format is necessary for automatic processing. Since most bank checks are handwritten, the number of checks is very high, and manual processing involves significant expenses, many banks are interested in systems that can rea...

In spite of the rapid advances in computers and communication technologies, a number of large-scale applications continue to rely heavily on the use of paper as the dominant medium, either in an intra-organizational or an inter-organizational environment. One major example of this category of paper intensive applications is the check processing app...

Sometimes diesel engines cannot be started under low temperature conditions. The main reason is the obstruction of the fuel filter as a consequence of gasoil becoming solid paraffin as the temperature lowers. This paper describes a device based on thermoelectricity and eutectic compound that attached to the outside of the filter can melt paraffin q...

Design of the hermetic device Cooling systems based on a continuous flow of fresh air are typically used in electronic devices. For applications in adverse environment such us underwater applications of industrial applications using air with a great amount of dust, hermetic devices are needed. The major problem when designing hermetic devices is to...

This paper presents the results of an investigation about the use of thermoelectricity in a car fuel filter in order to prevent the problems associated to its obstruction due to the creation of paraffins when the car is stopped for a long time in an environment where the temperature is very low. Also, it describes the main features of a redesign of...

One of the most promising applications of thermoelectricity is the recovery of waste heat for the production of electrical energy. The best performance in electrical power generation is obtained using specially designed TE elements [7][11], but the mass production of Peltier modules leads to an important reduction in prices. Commercial thermoelectr...

This paper shows the results of testing two commercial thermoelectric modules, one is the typical 12 V, Tmax=80°C and the other, designed for high temperature, is a 50 W, Tmax=200°C. All the results have been obtained experimentally using a test bench designed and built for this purpose. Special procedures were applied in order to be able to contro...

Knowledge of the health of power transformers is important to prevent high costs caused by failures and to maintain the quality of the service. On-line monitoring and diagnosis seem to be the right way to reach this objective. In this paper a set of experiences related to the installation of vibration and temperature sensors inside a test transform...

The high content of water in natural fruit juices suggests the reduction of their volume by its elimination. This is a concentration process for juices that saves space and reduces costs for storage, transport and handling. This paper describes the main features of a prototype of a “cryoconcentration cell” for obtaining concentrated orange juice. T...

Madrid. En este laboratorio se trabaja habitualmente con Matlab para realizar las prácticas presenciales y por lo tanto se ha querido mantener Matlab como herramienta para las simulaciones y los ensayos que se realizan en remoto. En algunos casos la interacción con el servidor web se puede realizar por medio de la herramienta Matlab Web Server, per...

In this paper an analysis is performed on a thermoelectric module using finite element techniques taking into account the following two hypothesis: thermal and electrical flows are present in two dimensions. The commercial software tool named ANSYS has been used in order to develop this analysis. This software includes the possibility to analyse jo...

The recovering of heat from exhaust gases in automobiles is a typical application of electricity generation using thermoelectricity. This paper is focused on reviewing the main characteristics and evolution of the different investigations performed over the last three decades concerning the use of thermoelectric generation using the heat from the e...

This paper describes the basic principles of a new concept for an active thermal wall able to improve the current practice of design and installation of air conditioning for enclosed spaces. The wall is a translucent or transparent flat wall which separates two environments (indoor and outdoor environments) at different temperatures allowing for th...

Many web pages use JavaScript to enhance appearance and to perform some client-side operations such us Form verification. Today the majority of browsers are JavaScript-capable, consequently many system administrators are disregard of the fact that their pages cannot be used properly if JavaScript is not supported or disabled. Browsers without JavaS...

Large-scale stochastic optimization problems can be divided into smaller subproblems using decomposition; however the computational overhead of decomposition methods is not justified except for the reason of adjusting the size of the problem to the computer resources being used. Decomposition is usually required due to memory size limitations, sinc...

In this paper, the performance of a thermoelectric module is analysed using the thermodynamic diagram Temperature- Entropy. This diagram can be used as a graphical tool which allows for the analysis of thermoelectric processes, both reversible and non-reversible, in an elemental pair or thermoelectric elements. A similarity is found between the See...

The large nehmrk of compromised computers currentzl' available can be used to run complex algorithms in order to solve problems considered to be beyond current computationalpower. A distribute algorithm for obtaining prime number is presented. The algorithm was run in a grid system to obtain all prime numbers up to 240, measuring execution times an...

This paper focuses on determining the value of the check, which is the first step needed for automatic processing. The multi-staged approach proposed in this paper deals with four aspects: the detections of the numerical amount field on the check; the segmentation of the string into a set of characters; the recognition of isolated characters; and t...

This paper discusses automated reading and processing of Brazilian bank checks. It highlights the main characteristics of Brazilian checks and the variety of writing styles that makes recognition more difficult than in countries where handwriting amounts are more uniform. Neural networks are used to recognize isolated digits obtained after segmenta...

En las grandes ciudades la gestión del tráfico urbano se realiza desde centros de control donde se monitorizan a diario las congestiones y se resuelven incidencias, Onodera (1999). Un recurso habitual para gestionar más eficazmente el tráfico en tiempo real consiste en el control y regulación de los cruces mediante semáforos. En la regulación de ca...