Search results for: Angel Daniel Muñoz Guzmán

Authors: L. M. López López, J. V. Montesdeoca Contreras, A. R. Cuji Fajardo, L. E. Garzón Muñoz, J. I. Fajardo Seminario

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In this article a new method of cleaning process of metal sheets for household appliances was developed, using low-pressure cold plasma. In this context, this research consist in analyze the results of metal sheets cleaning process using plasma and compare with pickling process to determinate the efficiency of each process and the level of contamination produced. Surface Cleaning was evaluated by measuring the contact angle with deionized water, diiodo methane and ethylene glycol, for the calculus of the surface free energy by means of the Fowkes theories and Wu. Showing that low-pressure cold plasma is very efficient both in cleaning process how in environment impact.

Keywords: efficient use of plasma, ecological impact of plasma, metal sheets cleaning means, plasma cleaning process.

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Authors: Ma. Karen Jimeno, Erika Kate Co, Ma. Claudia Alexis Frani, Shane Rosshel Guzman, Marie Jaye Constance Selga

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Home sharing continues to gain traction in the Philippines at the expense of traditional lodging options, to which the hospitality industry has reacted in stages. This study aims to describe the social and economic impact of home sharing in Metro Manila from the perspective of hosts. A cross-sectional survey questionnaire consisting of five-point Likert items was administered to 120 hosts in Metro Manila. Kruskal-Wallis test, together with Dunn’s pairwise comparison, was used in the analysis of data. Results show that there is a significant difference in the median scores between increased awareness of Filipino food/heritage and the pursuit of enjoyable life in terms of social impact. Economic-wise, the respondents, did not perceive that their businesses as an additional source of income for the local government. These findings can be used for further exploratory studies and formulation of sustainable business policies conducive for the entrepreneurs and the hospitality industry alike.

Keywords: bed-and-breakfast, home sharing, marketing, tourism

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Authors: Abdalla Manur, Daniel Offin, Alessandro Arsie

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In this paper, we study the extension of the minimizing equal mass parallelogram solutions which was derived by Chen in 2001. Chen’s solution was minimizing for one quarter of the period [0; T], where numerical integration had been used in his proof. This paper focuses on extending the minimization property to intervals of time [0; 2T] and [0; 4T].

Keywords: action, Hamiltoian, N-body, symmetry

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Authors: Miguel A. Borrella, Ana P. Fanjul, Suca Munoz, Liliana Herrera

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This paper evaluates the impact of LEADER, a remarkable Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) approach of the European Program for Rural Development applied to rural municipalities of Spain in 2018 and 2019. Using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy and a newly-constructed database, results show that aided municipalities have significantly lower unemployment levels than non-aided municipalities. Results are significant for the decrease in unemployment for both women and people younger than 25 years old, two of the target groups of the policy. Nevertheless, they are larger for male and older workers. Therefore, findings suggest that LEADER 2017-2018 was successful in reducing unemployment in rural areas.

Keywords: community-led local development, ex-post evaluation, LEADER, rural development

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Authors: Daniel Pinheiro Da Silva Junior, Aline Paes, Daniel De Oliveira, Christiano Lacerda Ghuerren, Marcio Duran

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The Courts of Accounts are institutions responsible for overseeing and point out irregularities of Public Administration expenses. They have a high demand for processes to be analyzed, whose decisions must be grounded on severity laws. Despite the existing large amount of processes, there are several cases reporting similar subjects. Thus, previous decisions on already analyzed processes can be a precedent for current processes that refer to similar topics. Identifying similar topics is an open, yet essential task for identifying similarities between several processes. Since the actual amount of topics is considerably large, it is tedious and error-prone to identify topics using a pure manual approach. This paper presents a tool based on Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing to assists in building a labeled dataset. The tool relies on Topic Modelling with Latent Dirichlet Allocation to find the topics underlying a document followed by Jensen Shannon distance metric to generate a probability of similarity between documents pairs. Furthermore, in a case study with a corpus of decisions of the Rio de Janeiro State Court of Accounts, it was noted that data pre-processing plays an essential role in modeling relevant topics. Also, the combination of topic modeling and a calculated distance metric over document represented among generated topics has been proved useful in helping to construct a labeled base of similar and non-similar document pairs.

Keywords: courts of accounts, data labelling, document similarity, topic modeling

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Authors: Oscar Corredor, Alexander Guzman, Adan Leon

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Density is a bulk physical property that indicates the quality of a petroleum fraction. It is also a useful property to estimate various physicochemical properties of fraction and petroleum fluids; however, the determination of density of extra heavy residual (EHR) fractions by standard methodologies, (ASTM D70) shows limitations for samples with higher densities than 1.0879 g/cm3. For this reason, a dilution methodology was developed in order to determinate density for those particular fractions, 87 (EHR) fractions were obtained as products of the fractionation of Colombian typical Vacuum Distillation Residual Fractions using molecular distillation (MD) and extraction with Solvent N-hexane in Supercritical Conditions (SFEF) pilot plants. The proposed methodology showed reliable results that can be demonstrated with the standard deviation of repeatability and reproducibility values of 0.0031 and 0.0061 g/ml respectively. In the same way, it was possible to determine densities in fractions EHR up to 1.1647g/cm3 and °API values obtained were ten times less than the water reference value.

Keywords: API, density, vacuum residual, molecular distillation, supercritical fluid extraction

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Authors: Adriana Muñoz-Talavera, Ana Rosa Rincón-Sánchez, Abraham Escobedo-Moratilla, María Cristina Islas-Carbajal, Miguel Ángel Gómez-Lim

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The highest rates of diabetes incidence and prevalence worldwide will increase the number of diabetic patients requiring insulin or insulin analogues. Then, current production systems would not be sufficient to meet the future market demands. Therefore, developing efficient expression systems for insulin and insulin analogues are needed. In addition, insulin analogues with better pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics properties and without mitogenic potential will be required. SCI-57 (single chain insulin-57) is an insulin analogue having 10 times greater affinity to the insulin receptor, higher resistance to thermal degradation than insulin, native mitogenicity and biological effect. Plants as expression platforms have been used to produce recombinant proteins because of their advantages such as cost-effectiveness, posttranslational modifications, absence of human pathogens and high quality. Immunoglobulin production with a yield of 50% has been achieved by transient expression in Nicotiana benthamiana (Nb). The aim of this study is to produce SCI-57 by transient expression in Nb. Methodology: DNA sequence encoding SCI-57 was cloned in pICH31070. This construction was introduced into Agrobacterium tumefaciens by electroporation. The resulting strain was used to infiltrate leaves of Nb. In order to isolate SCI-57, leaves from transformed plants were incubated 3 hours with the extraction buffer therefore filtrated to remove solid material. The resultant protein solution was subjected to anion exchange chromatography on an FPLC system and ultrafiltration to purify SCI-57. Detection of SCI-57 was made by electrophoresis pattern (SDS-PAGE). Protein band was digested with trypsin and the peptides were analyzed by Liquid chromatography tandem-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). A purified protein sample (20µM) was analyzed by ESI-Q-TOF-MS to obtain the ionization pattern and the exact molecular weight determination. Chromatography pattern and impurities detection were performed using RP-HPLC using recombinant insulin as standard. The identity of the SCI-57 was confirmed by anti-insulin ELISA. The total soluble protein concentration was quantified by Bradford assay. Results: The expression cassette was verified by restriction mapping (5393 bp fragment). The SDS-PAGE of crude leaf extract (CLE) of transformed plants, revealed a protein of about 6.4 kDa, non-present in CLE of untransformed plants. The LC-MS/MS results displayed one peptide with a high score that matches SCI-57 amino acid sequence in the sample, confirming the identity of SCI-57. From the purified SCI-57 sample (PSCI-57) the most intense charge state was 1069 m/z (+6) on the displayed ionization pattern corresponding to the molecular weight of SCI-57 (6412.6554 Da). The RP-HPLC of the PSCI-57 shows the presence of a peak with similar retention time (rt) and UV spectroscopic profile to the insulin standard (SCI-57 rt=12.96 and insulin rt=12.70 min). The collected SCI-57 peak had ELISA signal. The total protein amount in CLE from transformed plants was higher compared to untransformed plants. Conclusions: Our results suggest the feasibility to produce insulin analogue SCI-57 by transient expression in Nicotiana benthamiana. Further work is being undertaken to evaluate the biological activity by glucose uptake by insulin-sensitive and insulin-resistant murine and human cultured adipocytes.

Keywords: insulin analogue, mass spectrometry, Nicotiana benthamiana, transient expression

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Authors: Trina Isabel Santiago, Daniel Chua, Jumee Tayaban, Joseph Daniel Timbol, Joshua Yanes

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Numerous instances of human rights violations on healthcare workers have been reported during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines. This brief aims to explore these civil and political rights violations and propose recommendations to address these. Our review shows that a wide range of civic and political human rights violations have been committed by individual citizens and government agencies on individual healthcare workers and health worker groups. These violations include discrimination, red-tagging, evictions, illegal arrests, and acts of violence ranging from chemical attacks to homicide. If left unchecked, these issues, compounded by the pandemic, may lead to the exacerbations of the pre-existing problems of the Philippine healthcare system. Despite all pre-existing reports by human rights groups and public media articles, there still seems to be a lack of government action to condemn and prevent these violations. The existence of government agencies which directly contribute to these violations with the lack of condemnation from other agencies further propagate the problem. Given these issues, this policy brief recommends the establishment of an interagency task force for the protection of human rights of healthcare workers as well as the expedited passing of current legislative bills towards the same goal. For more immediate action, we call for the establishment of a dedicated hotline for these incidents with adequate appointment and training of point persons, construction of clear guidelines, and closer collaboration between government agencies in being united against these issues.

Keywords: human rights violations, healthcare workers, COVID-19 pandemic, Philippines

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Authors: Encarnacion Alvarez, Noemı Hidalgo-Rebollo, Juan F. Munoz, Francisco J. Blanco-Encomienda

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Many companies use the technique named as acceptance sampling which consists on the inspection and decision making regarding products. According to the results derived from this method, the company takes the decision of acceptance or rejection of a product. The acceptance sampling can be applied to the technology management, since the acceptance sampling can be seen as a tool to improve the design planning, operation and control of technological products. The theoretical operating characteristic (OC) curves are widely used when dealing with acceptance sampling. In this paper, we carry out Monte Carlo simulation studies to compare numerically the empirical OC curves derived from the empirical results to the customary theoretical OC curves. We analyze various possible scenarios in such a way that the differences between the empirical and theoretical curves can be observed under different situations.

Keywords: single-sampling plan, lot, Monte Carlo simulation, quality control

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Authors: Julio Brégains, Ángel Carro, José-Manuel Andión

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Virtual 3D objects constitute invaluable tools for teaching practical engineering subjects at all -from basic to advanced- educational levels. For instance, they can be equipped with animation or informative labels, manipulated by mouse movements, and even be immersed in a real environment through augmented reality. In this paper, we present the investigation and description of a set of applications prepared for creating, editing, and making use of interactive 3D models to represent electric and electronic devices and systems. Several examples designed with the described tools are exhibited, mainly to show their capabilities as educational technological aids, applicable not only to the field of electricity and electronics but also to a much wider range of technical areas.

Keywords: educational technology, Google model viewer, ICT educational tools, interactive teaching, new tools for teaching

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Authors: Muñoz-Sanchez, Victor Manuel, Perez-Flores, Antonio Manuel

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The main objective of this paper is to establish the relationship between models of state organization and the various types of collective identity expressed by the Spanish. The question of nationalism and identity ascription in Spain has always been a topic of special importance due to the presence in that country of territories where the population emits very different opinions of nationalist sentiment than the rest of Spain. The current situation of sovereignty challenge of Catalonia to the central government exemplifies the importance of the subject matter. In order to analyze this process of interrelation, we use a secondary data mining by applying the multiple correspondence analysis technique (MCA). As a main result a typology of four types of expression of collective identity based on models of State organization are shown, which are connected with the party position on this issue.

Keywords: models of organization of the state, nationalism, collective identity, Spain, political parties

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Authors: Raúl González Muñoz, Essam Shehab, Martin Weinitzke, Chris Fowler, Paul Baguley

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Software applications have become crucial for the aerospace industry, providing a wide range of functionalities and capabilities. However, due to the considerable time difference between aircraft and software life cycles, obsolescence has turned into a major challenge for industry in last decades. This paper aims to provide a view on the different causes of software obsolescence within aerospace industry, as well as a perception on the importance of each of them. The key research question addressed is what drives software obsolescence in the aerospace industry, managing large software application portfolios. This question has been addressed by conducting firstly an in depth review of current literature and secondly by arranging an industry workshop with professionals from aerospace and consulting companies. The result is a set of drivers of software obsolescence, distributed among three different environments and several domains. By incorporating monitoring methodologies to assess those software obsolescence drivers, benefits in maintenance efforts and operations disruption avoidance are expected.

Keywords: aerospace industry, obsolescence drivers, software lifecycle, software obsolescence

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Authors: Mariela Gonzalez, Zoraide Lugli, Eleonora Vivas, Rosana Guzmán

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The objective was to determine the predictive capacity of self-efficacy perceived for weight control, locus of weight control and skills of weight self-management in the dissatisfaction of the body image in obese people who attend treatment. Sectional study conducted in the city of Maracay, Venezuela, with 243 obese who attend to treatment, 173 of the feminine gender and 70 of the male, with ages ranging between 18 and 57 years old. The sample body mass index ranged between 29.39 and 44.14. The following instruments were used: The Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ), the inventory of body weight self-regulation, The Inventory of self-efficacy in the regulation of body weight and the Inventory of the Locus of weight control. Calculating the descriptive statistics and of central tendency, coefficients of correlation and multiple regression; it was found that a low ‘perceived Self-efficacy in the weight control’ and a high ‘Locus of external control’, predict the dissatisfaction with body image in obese who attend treatment. The findings are a first approximation to give an account of the importance of the personal control variables in the study of the psychological grief on the overweight individual.

Keywords: dissatisfaction with body image, obese people, personal control, psychological variables

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Authors: John Morales, Armando Guzman

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Protection relay algorithms play a crucial role in Electric Power System stability, where, it is clear that lightning strokes produce the mayor percentage of faults and outages of Transmission Lines (TLs) and Distribution Feeders (DFs). In this context, it is imperative to develop novel protection relay algorithms. However, in order to get this aim, Electric Power Systems (EPS) network have to be simulated as real as possible, especially the lightning phenomena, and EPS elements that affect their behavior like direct and indirect lightning, insulator string, overhead line, soil ionization and other. However, researchers have proposed new protection relay algorithms considering common faults, which are not produced by lightning strokes, omitting these imperative phenomena for the transmission line protection relays behavior. Based on the above said, this paper presents the possibilities of using the Alternative Transient Program ATP-Draw for the modeling and simulation of some models to make lightning stroke studies, especially for protection relays, which are developed through Transient Analysis of Control Systems (TACS) and MODELS language corresponding to the ATP-Draw.

Keywords: back-flashover, faults, flashover, lightning stroke, modeling of lightning, outages, protection relays

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Authors: Manuel A. Guzman, Davide Forcellini, Ricardo Moreno, Diego H. Giraldo

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Elastomeric bearings (EB) are used in many applications, such as base isolation of bridges, seismic protection and vibration control of other structures and machinery. Their versatility is due to their particular behavior since they have different stiffness in the vertical and horizontal directions, allowing to sustain vertical loads and at the same time horizontal displacements. Therefore, vertical, horizontal and bending stiffnesses are important parameters to take into account in the design of EB. In order to acquire a proper design methodology of EB all three, theoretical, finite element analysis and experimental, approaches should be taken into account to assess stability due to different loading states, predict their behavior and consequently their effects on the dynamic response of structures, and understand complex behavior and properties of rubber-like materials respectively. In particular, the recent large-displacement theory on the stability of EB formulated by Forcellini and Kelly is validated with both numerical simulations using the finite element method, and experimental results set at the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia. In this regard, this study reproduces the behavior of EB under compression loads and investigates the stability behavior with the three mentioned points of view.

Keywords: elastomeric bearings, experimental tests, numerical simulations, stability, large-displacement theory

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Authors: Libia Yanelli Yanez-Penunuri, Carlos Alejandro Hidalgo-Rasmussen, Cesar Armando Rey-Anacona

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Cultural and social norms have a great influence on individual behavior, including the use of violence. In this way, culture can protect against violence, but it can also support and encourage the use of violence. The aim of this study was to analyze differences in cultural acceptance and dating violence among Mexican high school students. A Cross-sectional study was carried out with 867 adolescent Mexican students of high school aged 14 to 18 years old in a dating relationship for at least a month in Guzman City, Mexico. To measure cultural acceptance and dating violence, the questionnaire abuse in dating (CMO) was applied. Informed consent to parents and students was requested. Analyses of descriptive and inferential statistics were performed. Participants were adolescent girls (61.4%) and adolescent boys (38.6%). About 63.7% of adolescents reported cultural acceptance of dating violence in their dating relationships. Associations between physical, sexual, economical dating violence and cultural acceptance were found. No association was found between psychological dating violence and cultural acceptance. The effect size in all dimensions was small. For future research, it is very important to take into consideration the change and evaluation of culture norms to prevent dating violence among adolescents.

Keywords: adolescents, culture, social norms, dating violence, students

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Authors: Daniel Panario, Daniel Santana de Freitas, Brett Stevens

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Almost Perfect Nonlinear (APN) permutations with optimal resistance against differential cryptanalysis can be found in several domains. The permutation used in the standard for symmetric cryptography (the AES), for example, is based on a special kind of inversion in GF(28). Although very close to APN (2-uniform), this permutation still contains one number 4 in its differential spectrum, which means that, rigorously, it must be classified as 4-uniform. This fact motivates the search for fully APN permutations in other domains of definition. The extremely high complexity associated to this kind of problem precludes an exhaustive search for an APN permutation with 256 elements to be performed without the support of a suitable mathematical structure. On the other hand, in principle, there is nothing to indicate which mathematically structured domains can effectively help the search, and it is necessary to test several domains. In this work, the search for APN permutations in rings ℤ2×ℤ2k is investigated. After a full, exhaustive search with k=2 and k=3, all possible APN permutations in those rings were recorded, together with their differential profiles. Some very promising heuristics in these cases were collected so that, when used as a basis to prune backtracking for the same search in ℤ2×ℤ8 (search space with size 16! ≅244), just a few tenths of a second were enough to produce an APN permutation in a single CPU. Those heuristics were empirically extrapolated so that they could be applied to a backtracking search for APNs over ℤ2×ℤ16 (search space with size 32! ≅2117). The best permutations found in this search were further refined through Simulated Annealing, with a definition of neighbors suitable to this domain. The best result produced with this scheme was a 3-uniform permutation over ℤ2×ℤ16 with only 24 values equal to 3 in the differential spectrum (all the other 968 values were less than or equal 2, as it should be the case for an APN permutation). Although far from being fully APN, this result is technically better than a 4-uniform permutation and demanded only a few seconds in a single CPU. This is a strong indication that the use of mathematically structured domains, like the rings described in this work, together with heuristics based on smaller cases, can lead to dramatic cuts in the computational resources involved in the complexity of the search for APN permutations in extremely large domains.

Keywords: APN permutations, heuristic searches, symmetric cryptography, S-box design

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Authors: A. Alvaredo , R. Guzman De Villoria, P. Castell, Juan P. Fernandez-Blazquez

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Since graphene was discovered in 2004, has been considered as superb material, due to its outstanding mechanical, electrical and thermal properties. Graphene has been incorporated as reinforcement in several high performance polymers in order to obtain a good balance of properties and to get new properties as thermal or electric conductivity. As well known, the properties of semicrystalline polymer and its composites depends heavily on degree of crystallinity. In this context, our research group has studied the crystallization behavior from amorphous state of PEEK/GNP composites. The monitoring of cold crystallization processes studied by time-resolved simultaneous wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). These techniques allowed to get an extremely relevant information about the evolution of the morphology of the PEEK/GNP composites. In addition, the thermal evolution of cold crystallization was followed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) as well. The experimental results showed changes in crystallization kinetics and c parameter unit cell when adding graphene. The main aim of this work is to produce PEEK/GNP composites and characterize their morphology, unit cell parameters and crystallization kinetic.

Keywords: PEEK, graphene, synchrotron, cold crystallization

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Authors: Frank Alexis, Jenny Antonia Rodriguez Leon, Cristobal Leonardo Dominguez Borbor, Mery Rosario Ramirez Munoz

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The shrimp industry has increased in the last years to the point of becoming one of the most dynamic industries. However, the appearance of diseases that significantly affect the production of shrimps has been an obstacle for the shrimp industry. We hypothesized that natural fibers from biodiversity can stimulate the immune system to prevent shrimp diseases like vibriosis. In this project, we extracted the fibers from vegetal sources in Ecuador and characterized them using common techniques like XRD, SEM, and then we tested the effect of fibers as immunostimulants for shrimps in-vitro and in-vivo using small aquarium and large pools. Our results demonstrate that vegetal fibers can significantly increase the survival of shrimps. Moreover, the production of shrimps in a large pool was significantly increased. Lastly, the test of color and taste successfully surpass the control group of shrimps not treated with fiber food supplements.

Keywords: fibers, immunostimulant, shrimp, vibriosis

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Authors: C. Angel, S. Asha

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Despite the advances made in various new technologies, application of these technologies for agriculture still remains a formidable task, as it involves integration of diverse domains for monitoring the different process involved in agricultural management. Advances in ambient intelligence technology represents one of the most powerful technology for increasing the yield of agricultural crops and to mitigate the impact of water scarcity, climatic change and methods for managing pests, weeds, and diseases. This paper proposes a GPS-assisted, machine to machine solutions that combine information collected by multiple sensors for the automated management of paddy crops. To maintain the economic viability of paddy cultivation, the various techniques used in agriculture are discussed and a novel system which uses ambient intelligence technique is proposed in this paper. The ambient intelligence based agricultural system gives a great scope.

Keywords: ambient intelligence, agricultural technology, smart agriculture, precise farming

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Authors: Claudia Marcela Munoz Gonzalez, Diego Fernando Hernandez Losada, Hugo Alberto Herrera Fonseca

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The project owner's role in the public-private investment consists of controlling and verifying the correct execution of the project's objectives and resources. Likewise, it is a discipline little explored in the academic field, whereby this work wishes to contribute with a model of good practices based on the project management methodology proposed by the Project Management Body of Knowledge® Guide. In the same way, highlight what are the controls that an integral project owner should take into account in its exercise and application, through the stages in which its contract runs. This proposal aims to structure its practice and integrate its functions according to a project management methodology. In addition, these practices will be applied in a case study of projects in the agricultural sector, particularly in the construction of irrigation district in Cundinamarca, Colombia.

Keywords: controls, construction of irrigation district, PMBOK®, project owner

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Authors: Constanza A. Barriga, Rafael Bernardi, Amokrane Berdja, Christian D. Guzman

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Most image restoration methods in astronomy rely upon probabilistic tools that infer the best solution for a deconvolution problem. They achieve good performances when the point spread function (PSF) is spatially invariable in the image plane. However, this latter condition is not always satisfied with real optical systems. PSF angular variations cannot be evaluated directly from the observations, neither be corrected at a pixel resolution. We have developed a method for the restoration of images affected by static and anisotropic aberrations using deep neural networks that can be directly applied to sky images. The network is trained using simulated sky images corresponding to the T-80 telescope optical system, an 80 cm survey imager at Cerro Tololo (Chile), which are synthesized using a Zernike polynomial representation of the optical system. Once trained, the network can be used directly on sky images, outputting a corrected version of the image, which has a constant and known PSF across its field-of-view. The method was tested with the T-80 telescope, achieving better results than with PSF deconvolution techniques. We present the method and results on this telescope.

Keywords: aberrations, deep neural networks, image restoration, variable point spread function, wide field images

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Authors: Mauricio Quintero Angel, Andrés A. Duque Nivia, Carlos H. Fajardo Toro

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This paper analyzes two approaches of sustainability, the weak and strong, considering a case of study of oil palm production for an industry of biodegradable detergent. In this case, a company demand the oil palm as the active element for washing and through its trademark aims to supply 10% of the Colombian market of washing powders. Under each approach the economic and ecological implications of the palm oil production and especially the implications for crop management are described. The crop production under the weak sustainability implies plantations, intensive use of agrochemicals and the inclusion of new areas of cultivation as the market grows. Under the strong sustainability the production system is limited by the productive vocation of the ecosystem, so that new approaches and creativity for making viable the nature conservancy and the business development are require.

Keywords: agriculture, environmental impacts, oil palm, strong sustainability, weak sustainability

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Authors: Allan B. de Guzman, Rochelle Gabrielle R. Gatan, Ira Bianca Mae G. Gesmundo, Astley Justine H. Golosinda

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Background: While in prison, the elderly, like the younger prisoners, face specific problems and deprivations arising directly from their imprisonment, one of which is forced separation from family and loved ones. Despite the numerous studies that examined the impact of separation and separation anxiety on the emotions and behavior of young individuals, little is known about separation anxiety in the elderly population. Objective: This grounded theory study purports to describe the process of separation anxiety among incarcerated Filipino elderly men. Method: Individual interviews and participant observations were conducted with 25 incarcerated elderly Filipino men who are first-time prisoners, sentenced to lifetime imprisonment and were analyzed using constant comparative method. Results: Following Strauss and Corbin’s protocol, a four-part process emerged to describe the studied layer of human experience. The Tectonic Model of Separation Anxiety among incarcerated Filipino elderly men comprises of four phases: Winkling, Wilting, Weeding, and Weaving. Conclusion: This study has inductively and creatively explored the process of separation anxiety among the Filipino incarcerated elderly men. Findings of this study invite nurses and other clinicians to identify developmentally appropriate strategies and interventions for this vulnerable and neglected sector of society.

Keywords: elderly, grounded theory, separation anxiety, Filipino, incarcerated

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Authors: Encarnación Álvarez-Verdejo, Raúl Amor-Pulido, Pablo J. Moya-Fernández, Juan F. Muñoz-Rosas, Francisco J. Blanco-Encomienda

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Many companies use the statistical tool named as statistical quality control, and which can have a high cost for the companies interested on these statistical tools. The evaluation of the quality of products and services is an important topic, but the reduction of the cost of the implantation of the statistical quality control also has important benefits for the companies. For this reason, it is important to implement a economic design for the various steps included into the statistical quality control. In this paper, we describe some relevant aspects related to the economic design of a quality control chart for the proportion of defective items. They are very important because the suggested issues can reduce the cost of implementing a quality control chart for the proportion of defective items. Note that the main purpose of this chart is to evaluate and control the proportion of defective items of a production process.

Keywords: proportion, type I error, economic plan, distribution function

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Authors: Rafal Morawczynski

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The paper presents results of a study of technology angels in Poland, who are important for the development of the high technology industries. For entrepreneurs, they offer not only capital but also expertise, engagement, and networking. A technology angel is a relatively new type of investor who invests in high-tech start-ups and supports their founders (entrepreneurs) in the development process of a new venture. Conclusions are drawn from a comparison between 8 technology angels and 7 'classical' business angels. Results present features and behaviors of technology angels that distinguish them from traditional (typical, classic) business angels. As this type of investor actively cooperates with entrepreneurs, the study focuses mainly on their perception of venture founders and several aspects of this cooperation: perception of entrepreneurs’ characteristics by angels, correction of expectations toward corporate governance, and 'value adding' activities.

Keywords: business angels, entrepreneurs, Poland, start-up, technology entrepreneurship, venture capital

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Authors: Encarnación Álvarez, Rosa M. García-Fernández, Juan F. Muñoz

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Estimation of a proportion has many applications in economics and social studies. A common application is the estimation of the low income proportion, which gives the proportion of people classified as poor into a population. In this paper, we present this poverty indicator and propose to use the logistic regression estimator for the problem of estimating the low income proportion. Various sampling designs are presented. Assuming a real data set obtained from the European Survey on Income and Living Conditions, Monte Carlo simulation studies are carried out to analyze the empirical performance of the logistic regression estimator under the various sampling designs considered in this paper. Results derived from Monte Carlo simulation studies indicate that the logistic regression estimator can be more accurate than the customary estimator under the various sampling designs considered in this paper. The stratified sampling design can also provide more accurate results.

Keywords: poverty line, risk of poverty, auxiliary variable, ratio method

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Authors: Leonardo Alfredo Mendoza, Cristian Munoz, Marco Aurelio Pacheco, Manoela Kohler, Evelyn Batista, Rodrigo Moura

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques are increasingly more powerful to be able to interpret the feelings and reactions of a person to a product or service. Sentiment analysis has become a fundamental tool for this interpretation but has few applications in languages other than English. This paper presents a classification of sentiment analysis in Portuguese with a base of comments from social networks in Portuguese. A word embedding's representation was used with a 50-Dimension GloVe pre-trained model, generated through a corpus completely in Portuguese. To generate this classification, the bidirectional long short-term memory and bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) models are used, reaching results of 99.1%.

Keywords: natural processing language, sentiment analysis, bidirectional long short-term memory, BI-LSTM, gated recurrent unit, GRU

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Authors: Ana M. Guzman, Claudia M. Rodriguez, Pedro F. B. Brandao, Elianna Castillo

Abstract:

Cadmium (Cd) is a carcinogenic metal to which humans are exposed mainly due to its presence in the food chain. Lactic acid bacteria have the capability to bind cadmium and thus the potential to be used as probiotics to treat this metal toxicity in the human body. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the potential of native lactic acid bacteria, isolated from Colombian fermented cocoa, to remove cadmium from aqueous solutions. An initial screening was made with the Lactobacillus plantarum JCM 1055 type strain, and Cd was quantified by atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). Lb. plantarum JCM 1055 was grown in ½ MRS medium to follow growth kinetics during 32 h at 37 °C, by measuring optical density at 600 nm. Washed cells, grown for 18 h, were adjusted to obtain dry biomass concentrations of 1.5 g/L and 0.5 g/L for removal assays in 10 mL of Cd(NO₃)₂ solution with final concentrations of 10 mg/Kg or 1.0 mg/Kg. The assays were performed at two different pH values (2.0 and 5.0), and results showed better adsorption abilities at higher pH. After incubation for 1 h at 37 °C and 150 rpm, the removal percentages for 10 mg/Kg Cd with 1.5 g/L and 0.5 g/L biomass concentration at pH 5.0 were, respectively, 71% and 50%, while the efficiency was 9.15 and 4.52 mg Cd/g dry biomass, respectively. For the assay with 1.0 mg/Kg Cd at pH 5.0, the removal was 100% and 98%, respectively for the same biomass concentrations, and the efficiency was 1.63 and 0.56 mg Cd/g dry biomass, respectively. These results suggest the efficiency of Lactobacillus strains to remove cadmium and their potential to be used as probiotics to treat cadmium toxicity and reduce its accumulation in the human body.

Keywords: cadmium removal, fermented cocoa, lactic acid bacteria, probiotics

Procedia PDF Downloads 151

Authors: Yolanda Ramirez, Angel Tejada, Agustin Baidez

Abstract:

There is currently a growing interest in the improvement of university governance and the disclosure of information on corporate governance processes as an essential part of the transparency and accountability of universities. This paper aims to know the importance given by Spanish university stakeholders to the disclosure of information about structure and mechanism of corporate governance. So as to meet this objective we propose a model for disclosing information on the main aspects of university governance in Spanish universities. This model will be validated using a questionnaire sent to members of the Social Councils of public universities in Spain. Our results show that Spanish university stakeholders attach great importance to the disclosure of specific information on aspects of corporate governance, which would result in improved transparency and accountability. According to the results of this study it may be concluded that the university stakeholders feel that it is relevant to publish information on corporate governance in the university accounting information model.

Keywords: corporate governance, transparency, accountability, universities, Spain

Procedia PDF Downloads 287