Jesus Alvarado - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Jesus Alvarado

Research paper thumbnail of Modeling and Simulation of Equivalent Circuits in Description of Biological Systems - A Fractional Calculus Approach

Journal of Electrical Bioimpedance, 2012

Using the fractional calculus approach, we present the Laplace analysis of an equivalent electric... more Using the fractional calculus approach, we present the Laplace analysis of an equivalent electrical circuit for a multilayered system, which includes distributed elements of the Cole model type. The Bode graphs are obtained from the numerical simulation of the corresponding transfer functions using arbitrary electrical parameters in order to illustrate the methodology. A numerical Laplace transform is used with respect to the simulation of the fractional differential equations. From the results shown in the analysis, we obtain the formula for the equivalent electrical circuit of a simple spectrum, such as that generated by a real sample of blood tissue, and the corresponding Nyquist diagrams. In addition to maintaining consistency in adjusted electrical parameters, the advantage of using fractional differential equations in the study of the impedance spectra is made clear in the analysis used to determine a compact formula for the equivalent electrical circuit, which includes the Cole model and a simple RC model as special cases.

Research paper thumbnail of Coating of gold nanoparticles for medical application: UV-VIS

Research paper thumbnail of Acoustic Interference on a Visual Attention Task in Relation to the Perceptual Load

SOJ Psychology, 2014

ABSTRACT

Research paper thumbnail of Acoustic Interference on a Visual Attention Task in Relation to the Perceptual Load

SOJ Psychology, 2014

ABSTRACT

Research paper thumbnail of Fingerspelling and Sign Language as Alternative Codes for Reading and Writing Words for Chilean Deaf Signers

American Annals of The Deaf, 2006

Research paper thumbnail of College performance prediction test

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

The purpose of this study was to construct and evaluate the psychometric properties of an instrum... more The purpose of this study was to construct and evaluate the psychometric properties of an instrument that is designed to measure attitudinal, affective, and emotional factors relevant in predicting academic performance in engineering students. The developed instrument makes it possible to obtain a student's profile in terms of his/her attitudes toward science, motivation and anxiety levels that have been revealed to be important factors in previous studies. The research has been developed in various universities in Peru and in different phases: an initial pilot phase with 81 university students; a second phase where the test was applied to 866 engineering students from different socioeconomic and cultural development stratum. The results, after making corrections to the original instrument and verifying the instrument's stability over time (test-retest analysis), makes it possible to affirm that the proposed objective has been achieved, and that an instrument with acceptable reliability and validity of construction is available. Additionally, it will be informed about the predictive ability of the instrument in different considered degrees, and in relation to socioeconomic and cultural aspects of the students.

Research paper thumbnail of Using a Test Adapted to Sign Language to Assess Metacognitive Skill of Deaf Students

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

about actual cognitive processes and products together with any other information that is relevan... more about actual cognitive processes and products together with any other information that is relevant to learning. As children develop metacognitive strategies, they interiorize a body of knowledge that will enable them to regulate their learning. In the hearing population there is a clear relationship between metacognition, reading comprehension and academic achievement. However, until now there have been very few attempts to assess metacognition in the deaf in an appropriate way, despite the fact that the difficulties deaf people have in attaining reading comprehension are well documented. This study presents an adaptation of the Scale of Reading Consciousness (ESCOLA, in its Spanish acronym) so that it can be used for Spanish sign language and compares the results obtained from its standard and adapted application. This is followed by a discussion on the results and the biases in interpretation that can arise from an indiscriminate application of the standard test.

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluating Reading and Metacognitive Deficits in Children and Adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The Spanish journal of psychology, 2011

The reading achievement of children and adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder... more The reading achievement of children and adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has scarcely been explored in research conducted in the Spanish language and when it has, the results have been contradictory. The focus of the present research is to analyze participants' reading competency and metacognitive strategies as they carry out reading comprehension tasks. The sample was comprised of 187 Argentine schoolchildren aged 9 to 13 years old. 94 constituted the control group and the clinical group consisted of 93 schoolchildren diagnosed with ADHD. The metacognitive assessment was made up of two metacognitive tests, the Reading Awareness Scale (ESCOLA; acronym in Spanish) and a Spanish adaptation of Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI), and one test of reading comprehension, the Evaluation of Reading Processes for Secondary Education Students (PROLEC-SE; acronym in Spanish). Students with ADHD had lower achievement on tests of reading comprehension compared to the control group. Nevertheless, our results suggest their difficulties did not stem from reading comprehension problems, but rather from alterations in their Executive Functions, because when subjects' reading comprehension was equalized, students with ADHD still exhibited a lower level of Metacognition, particularly when it came to planning.

Research paper thumbnail of Fingerspelling and Sign Language as Alternative Codes for Reading and Writing Words for Chilean Deaf Signers

American Annals of the Deaf, 2006

Research paper thumbnail of Visual and Phonological Coding in Working Memory and Orthographic Skills of Deaf Children Using Chilean Sign Language

American Annals of the Deaf, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of A Simulation Procedure for the Generation of Samples to Evaluate Goodness of Fit Indices in Item Response Theory Models

Methodology: European Journal of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2011

The LISREL8.8/PRELIS2.81 program can carry out ordinal factorial analysis (OFA command), with ful... more The LISREL8.8/PRELIS2.81 program can carry out ordinal factorial analysis (OFA command), with full information maximum likelihood methods, in a data set containing n samples obtained by simulation. Nevertheless, when the replication number is greater than 1, an error command is produced, which impedes reaching solutions that can execute normal (NOR) and logistic (POM) functions. This paper proposes a new procedure

Research paper thumbnail of Aggression, Pleasure, and Cognitive Dissonance

The Open Psychology Journal, 2014

The relationship between aggression, pleasure and decision-making is analyzed applying a mediatio... more The relationship between aggression, pleasure and decision-making is analyzed applying a mediation model of structural equation modeling (SEM). The study explored it in two samples of similar age: young offenders and university students. A close relationship between aggression and pleasure was found in both populations. But, whereas in the case of university students, this congruence leads to a normal or adjusted behavior, in the case of young offenders, however, a mismatched evaluation of conflict and provocation leads them to make unacceptable violence decisions.

Research paper thumbnail of Relationship between anger and individual sensitivity to noise in adolescents

Research paper thumbnail of Emotional intelligence and anger in adolescents

Research paper thumbnail of INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN ANGER REACTION TO NOISE

Background: A review of the literature demonstrates an association between noise and anger. It is... more Background: A review of the literature demonstrates an association between noise and anger. It is hypothesised, however, that this association would not be the same for every subject, but depend on a large range of psychobiological differences between individuals, dependent on age, sex, and noise sensitivity of each subject. The aim of this study was to investigate these eventual individual differences in how the subjective sensitivity to noise is associated to different dimensions of anger in adolescents of different age and of both sexes. Methods: For this purpose two selfreport instruments were chosen: the Sensitivity to Noise test (SENSIT) and the State-Trait Anger expression Inventory (STAXI) . Results: showed: a) a globally significant correlationship between sensitivity to noise and the different anger aspects: feelings (in anger state), temperament (in trait anger), and internal expression (in anger expression); and b) different characteristics according to the psychobiological peculiarities of each subject (subjective sensitivity to noise, age, sex). Conclusions: in accordance to the hypothesis, the present results suggest that noise may act as a stressor causing unwanted aversive changes in an affective state, such as anger; b) that these changes are related to several psychobiological characteristics of the subject, such as age, sex, and individual sensitivity to noise; and c) that noise sensitivity, measured by SENSIT, may be used as a good predictor of anger.

Research paper thumbnail of The Aggression Questionnaire for Spanish Preadolescents and Adolescents: AQ-PA

The Spanish journal of psychology, 2009

We have already published the psychometric properties of our Spanish version of the Buss and Perr... more We have already published the psychometric properties of our Spanish version of the Buss and Perry's Aggression Questionnaire adapted to young subjects (Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 1453-1465). The four-dimensional structure of the questionnaire was confirmed in each pre-adolescent and adolescent sample, although differences in the intercorrelations among factors between both groups of age were then observed. We publish now new evidences about its factorial validity in the whole group of pre-adolescent and adolescent children. We also report the positive correlations found between measurements obtained with this questionnaire (AQ-PA) and other aggression and anger scales (DIAS, STAXI and EXPAGG) and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), which provide more evidences about its convergent validity. The text of the Spanish version of this questionnaire adapted to pre-adolescent and adolescent subjects is also reported.

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluation of a Spanish version of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire: Some personal and situational factors related to the aggression scores of young subjects

Personality and Individual Differences, 2007

The psychometric properties of a Spanish translation of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnai... more The psychometric properties of a Spanish translation of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire adapted for pre-adolescents and adolescents have been studied. A maximum-likelihood confirmatory factor analysis corroborates Buss and Perry’s four-factor structure. The internal consistency of each factor and of the total score has proved to be satisfactory. The four factors are more closely interrelated in pre-adolescents than in adolescents.A second aim of this work has been to further our understanding of the possible relationship between aggression scores and certain outside-school activities of the subjects studied. Two thousand two hundred and eight students filled in the questionnaire together with a self-report concerning their habits. The results show that the aggression scores rise concomitantly with time spent watching television and playing video games and decrease the greater the time devoted to extra-curricular reading or moderate amounts of homework. Statistically significant differences relating to age and gender were also found.

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluation of a Spanish version of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire: Some personal and situational factors related to the aggression scores of young subjects

Personality and Individual Differences, 2007

... to violent television, movies or video games, which can increase aggression via cognitive cue... more ... to violent television, movies or video games, which can increase aggression via cognitive cueingeffects, as proposed by social cognitive theory and ... and watching television (Williams, Haertel, Haertel, & Walberg, 1982) and time playing video games (Anderson and ...

Research paper thumbnail of Improvement of functional magnetic resonance images by pretreatment of data

European Biophysics Journal, 1996

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has be-come a powerful tool in the detection and ass... more Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has be-come a powerful tool in the detection and assessment of cerebral pathophysiology and the regional mapping and characterization of such cognitive processes as vision, mo-tor skills, language and memory (Sanders and ...

Research paper thumbnail of An evaluation of the CODE Theory of Visual Attention extended to two dimensions

Acta Psychologica, 1999

We have extended the CODE Theory of the Visual Attention (CTVA) model proposed by Logan (Logan, G... more We have extended the CODE Theory of the Visual Attention (CTVA) model proposed by Logan (Logan, G.D., (1996). Psychological Review 103, 603–649) to two dimensions. Our main aim has been to evaluate the two-dimensional model's predictions concerning reaction times (RTs) and the response-compatibility effect derived from Logan's CTVA model by using a new version of Eriksen and Eriksen (Eriksen, B. A. & Eriksen, C. W. (1974). Perception & Psychophysics, 16, 143–149) response-competition paradigm. The CTVA model extended to two dimensions (CTVA-2D) fits well to our experimental results obtained with three display sizes and four experimental target-letter to noise-letter distances, allowing us to make satisfactory predictions concerning the effects of noise compatibility, Target–noise (T–N) distance and display size.

Research paper thumbnail of Modeling and Simulation of Equivalent Circuits in Description of Biological Systems - A Fractional Calculus Approach

Journal of Electrical Bioimpedance, 2012

Using the fractional calculus approach, we present the Laplace analysis of an equivalent electric... more Using the fractional calculus approach, we present the Laplace analysis of an equivalent electrical circuit for a multilayered system, which includes distributed elements of the Cole model type. The Bode graphs are obtained from the numerical simulation of the corresponding transfer functions using arbitrary electrical parameters in order to illustrate the methodology. A numerical Laplace transform is used with respect to the simulation of the fractional differential equations. From the results shown in the analysis, we obtain the formula for the equivalent electrical circuit of a simple spectrum, such as that generated by a real sample of blood tissue, and the corresponding Nyquist diagrams. In addition to maintaining consistency in adjusted electrical parameters, the advantage of using fractional differential equations in the study of the impedance spectra is made clear in the analysis used to determine a compact formula for the equivalent electrical circuit, which includes the Cole model and a simple RC model as special cases.

Research paper thumbnail of Coating of gold nanoparticles for medical application: UV-VIS

Research paper thumbnail of Acoustic Interference on a Visual Attention Task in Relation to the Perceptual Load

SOJ Psychology, 2014

ABSTRACT

Research paper thumbnail of Acoustic Interference on a Visual Attention Task in Relation to the Perceptual Load

SOJ Psychology, 2014

ABSTRACT

Research paper thumbnail of Fingerspelling and Sign Language as Alternative Codes for Reading and Writing Words for Chilean Deaf Signers

American Annals of The Deaf, 2006

Research paper thumbnail of College performance prediction test

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

The purpose of this study was to construct and evaluate the psychometric properties of an instrum... more The purpose of this study was to construct and evaluate the psychometric properties of an instrument that is designed to measure attitudinal, affective, and emotional factors relevant in predicting academic performance in engineering students. The developed instrument makes it possible to obtain a student's profile in terms of his/her attitudes toward science, motivation and anxiety levels that have been revealed to be important factors in previous studies. The research has been developed in various universities in Peru and in different phases: an initial pilot phase with 81 university students; a second phase where the test was applied to 866 engineering students from different socioeconomic and cultural development stratum. The results, after making corrections to the original instrument and verifying the instrument's stability over time (test-retest analysis), makes it possible to affirm that the proposed objective has been achieved, and that an instrument with acceptable reliability and validity of construction is available. Additionally, it will be informed about the predictive ability of the instrument in different considered degrees, and in relation to socioeconomic and cultural aspects of the students.

Research paper thumbnail of Using a Test Adapted to Sign Language to Assess Metacognitive Skill of Deaf Students

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

about actual cognitive processes and products together with any other information that is relevan... more about actual cognitive processes and products together with any other information that is relevant to learning. As children develop metacognitive strategies, they interiorize a body of knowledge that will enable them to regulate their learning. In the hearing population there is a clear relationship between metacognition, reading comprehension and academic achievement. However, until now there have been very few attempts to assess metacognition in the deaf in an appropriate way, despite the fact that the difficulties deaf people have in attaining reading comprehension are well documented. This study presents an adaptation of the Scale of Reading Consciousness (ESCOLA, in its Spanish acronym) so that it can be used for Spanish sign language and compares the results obtained from its standard and adapted application. This is followed by a discussion on the results and the biases in interpretation that can arise from an indiscriminate application of the standard test.

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluating Reading and Metacognitive Deficits in Children and Adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The Spanish journal of psychology, 2011

The reading achievement of children and adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder... more The reading achievement of children and adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has scarcely been explored in research conducted in the Spanish language and when it has, the results have been contradictory. The focus of the present research is to analyze participants' reading competency and metacognitive strategies as they carry out reading comprehension tasks. The sample was comprised of 187 Argentine schoolchildren aged 9 to 13 years old. 94 constituted the control group and the clinical group consisted of 93 schoolchildren diagnosed with ADHD. The metacognitive assessment was made up of two metacognitive tests, the Reading Awareness Scale (ESCOLA; acronym in Spanish) and a Spanish adaptation of Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI), and one test of reading comprehension, the Evaluation of Reading Processes for Secondary Education Students (PROLEC-SE; acronym in Spanish). Students with ADHD had lower achievement on tests of reading comprehension compared to the control group. Nevertheless, our results suggest their difficulties did not stem from reading comprehension problems, but rather from alterations in their Executive Functions, because when subjects' reading comprehension was equalized, students with ADHD still exhibited a lower level of Metacognition, particularly when it came to planning.

Research paper thumbnail of Fingerspelling and Sign Language as Alternative Codes for Reading and Writing Words for Chilean Deaf Signers

American Annals of the Deaf, 2006

Research paper thumbnail of Visual and Phonological Coding in Working Memory and Orthographic Skills of Deaf Children Using Chilean Sign Language

American Annals of the Deaf, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of A Simulation Procedure for the Generation of Samples to Evaluate Goodness of Fit Indices in Item Response Theory Models

Methodology: European Journal of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2011

The LISREL8.8/PRELIS2.81 program can carry out ordinal factorial analysis (OFA command), with ful... more The LISREL8.8/PRELIS2.81 program can carry out ordinal factorial analysis (OFA command), with full information maximum likelihood methods, in a data set containing n samples obtained by simulation. Nevertheless, when the replication number is greater than 1, an error command is produced, which impedes reaching solutions that can execute normal (NOR) and logistic (POM) functions. This paper proposes a new procedure

Research paper thumbnail of Aggression, Pleasure, and Cognitive Dissonance

The Open Psychology Journal, 2014

The relationship between aggression, pleasure and decision-making is analyzed applying a mediatio... more The relationship between aggression, pleasure and decision-making is analyzed applying a mediation model of structural equation modeling (SEM). The study explored it in two samples of similar age: young offenders and university students. A close relationship between aggression and pleasure was found in both populations. But, whereas in the case of university students, this congruence leads to a normal or adjusted behavior, in the case of young offenders, however, a mismatched evaluation of conflict and provocation leads them to make unacceptable violence decisions.

Research paper thumbnail of Relationship between anger and individual sensitivity to noise in adolescents

Research paper thumbnail of Emotional intelligence and anger in adolescents

Research paper thumbnail of INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN ANGER REACTION TO NOISE

Background: A review of the literature demonstrates an association between noise and anger. It is... more Background: A review of the literature demonstrates an association between noise and anger. It is hypothesised, however, that this association would not be the same for every subject, but depend on a large range of psychobiological differences between individuals, dependent on age, sex, and noise sensitivity of each subject. The aim of this study was to investigate these eventual individual differences in how the subjective sensitivity to noise is associated to different dimensions of anger in adolescents of different age and of both sexes. Methods: For this purpose two selfreport instruments were chosen: the Sensitivity to Noise test (SENSIT) and the State-Trait Anger expression Inventory (STAXI) . Results: showed: a) a globally significant correlationship between sensitivity to noise and the different anger aspects: feelings (in anger state), temperament (in trait anger), and internal expression (in anger expression); and b) different characteristics according to the psychobiological peculiarities of each subject (subjective sensitivity to noise, age, sex). Conclusions: in accordance to the hypothesis, the present results suggest that noise may act as a stressor causing unwanted aversive changes in an affective state, such as anger; b) that these changes are related to several psychobiological characteristics of the subject, such as age, sex, and individual sensitivity to noise; and c) that noise sensitivity, measured by SENSIT, may be used as a good predictor of anger.

Research paper thumbnail of The Aggression Questionnaire for Spanish Preadolescents and Adolescents: AQ-PA

The Spanish journal of psychology, 2009

We have already published the psychometric properties of our Spanish version of the Buss and Perr... more We have already published the psychometric properties of our Spanish version of the Buss and Perry's Aggression Questionnaire adapted to young subjects (Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 1453-1465). The four-dimensional structure of the questionnaire was confirmed in each pre-adolescent and adolescent sample, although differences in the intercorrelations among factors between both groups of age were then observed. We publish now new evidences about its factorial validity in the whole group of pre-adolescent and adolescent children. We also report the positive correlations found between measurements obtained with this questionnaire (AQ-PA) and other aggression and anger scales (DIAS, STAXI and EXPAGG) and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), which provide more evidences about its convergent validity. The text of the Spanish version of this questionnaire adapted to pre-adolescent and adolescent subjects is also reported.

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluation of a Spanish version of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire: Some personal and situational factors related to the aggression scores of young subjects

Personality and Individual Differences, 2007

The psychometric properties of a Spanish translation of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnai... more The psychometric properties of a Spanish translation of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire adapted for pre-adolescents and adolescents have been studied. A maximum-likelihood confirmatory factor analysis corroborates Buss and Perry’s four-factor structure. The internal consistency of each factor and of the total score has proved to be satisfactory. The four factors are more closely interrelated in pre-adolescents than in adolescents.A second aim of this work has been to further our understanding of the possible relationship between aggression scores and certain outside-school activities of the subjects studied. Two thousand two hundred and eight students filled in the questionnaire together with a self-report concerning their habits. The results show that the aggression scores rise concomitantly with time spent watching television and playing video games and decrease the greater the time devoted to extra-curricular reading or moderate amounts of homework. Statistically significant differences relating to age and gender were also found.

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluation of a Spanish version of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire: Some personal and situational factors related to the aggression scores of young subjects

Personality and Individual Differences, 2007

... to violent television, movies or video games, which can increase aggression via cognitive cue... more ... to violent television, movies or video games, which can increase aggression via cognitive cueingeffects, as proposed by social cognitive theory and ... and watching television (Williams, Haertel, Haertel, & Walberg, 1982) and time playing video games (Anderson and ...

Research paper thumbnail of Improvement of functional magnetic resonance images by pretreatment of data

European Biophysics Journal, 1996

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has be-come a powerful tool in the detection and ass... more Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has be-come a powerful tool in the detection and assessment of cerebral pathophysiology and the regional mapping and characterization of such cognitive processes as vision, mo-tor skills, language and memory (Sanders and ...

Research paper thumbnail of An evaluation of the CODE Theory of Visual Attention extended to two dimensions

Acta Psychologica, 1999

We have extended the CODE Theory of the Visual Attention (CTVA) model proposed by Logan (Logan, G... more We have extended the CODE Theory of the Visual Attention (CTVA) model proposed by Logan (Logan, G.D., (1996). Psychological Review 103, 603–649) to two dimensions. Our main aim has been to evaluate the two-dimensional model's predictions concerning reaction times (RTs) and the response-compatibility effect derived from Logan's CTVA model by using a new version of Eriksen and Eriksen (Eriksen, B. A. & Eriksen, C. W. (1974). Perception & Psychophysics, 16, 143–149) response-competition paradigm. The CTVA model extended to two dimensions (CTVA-2D) fits well to our experimental results obtained with three display sizes and four experimental target-letter to noise-letter distances, allowing us to make satisfactory predictions concerning the effects of noise compatibility, Target–noise (T–N) distance and display size.