Search

Introduction: Eosinophilic skin diseases encompass a broad spectrum, including Wells syndrome, which is characterized by histological findings of eosinophilic infiltration in the dermis. The etiology and pathogenesis of Wells syndrome are still unknown, but it has been reported that insect bites, infections, and medications can act as triggers. Fungal infections are common in clinical practice; however, when they are recurrent, have atypical characteristics, or are resistant to treatments, they must be recognized as potential triggers for hypersensitivity reactions such as Wells syndrome. Case Presentation: We present the clinical and histopathological characteristics of a case in which Wells syndrome was associated with a fungal infection. Conclusions: Wells syndrome is a rare skin disorder with polymorphic manifestations, making diagnosis challenging in clinical practice. Therefore, a high index of suspicion is required, and blood tests and skin biopsy are necessary to confirm the diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Melanoma is among the most aggressive types of skin cancer. For Latin American populations, we know very little about its patterns of occurrence and probabilities of survival. In this study, using data of the Bucaramanga Metropolitan Area Cancer Registry, we describe that the incidence rate is about 2 per 100,000 person-years, and that 5 years after diagnosis, 71% did not die of their melanoma. We also described the details of the characteristics and subgroups of survival. These findings help understand this disease better in this population and identified the need for more detailed and timely data in the whole region of Latin America. We aimed to improve the available information on morphology and stage for cutaneous melanoma in the population-based cancer registry of the Bucaramanga Metropolitan Area in Colombia. The incidence and survival rates and the distribution of melanoma patients by age, gender, anatomical subsite, and histological subtype were calculated. All 113 melanoma patients (median age 61) were followed up (median time 7.4 years). This exercise (filling in missing information in the registry by manual search of patient clinical record and other available information) yielded more identified invasive melanomas and cases with complete information on anatomical localization and stage. Age-standardized incidence and mortality rates were 1.86 and 1.08, being slightly higher for males. Most melanomas were localized on the lower limbs, followed by the trunk. For 35% of all melanomas, the morphological subtype remained unknown. Most of the remaining melanomas were nodular and acral lentiginous melanomas. Overall global and relative 5-year survival was 61.6% and 71.3%, respectively, with poorer survival for males than females. Melanomas on the head and neck and unspecified anatomical sites had the worst survival. Patients without stage information in their medical files had excellent survival, unlike patients for whom medical files were no longer available. This study shows the possibility of improving data availability and the importance of good quality population-based data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the development of the notion of archaeological heritage in nineteenth-century Peru, within the historical and socio-political processes that led to its rise as a modern nation-State. Unlike the many studies locating the origins of the basic principles and praxis of heritage in the early twentieth-century’s intersection of Peruvian archaeology and nationalism, this study argues instead that this period marked a major landmark in the course of several processes that had begun in the nineteenth-century. Throughout the early years of the republic, heritage, here conceived as a social cons.truct and as a process, underwent a formative century from three different perspectives: nationalism, the modern scientific outlook, and the role of tutelary institutions. This study concludes identifying two major foundational moments of archaeological heritage in contexts of nationalist enthusiasm stirred by political and intellectual elites: the rise of the Peruvian State (1821-1824) and the aftermath of the War of the Pacific (1879-1884). The paper likewise acknowledges that the origins of heritage and its political nature cannot be understood outside processes closely connected with modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As more applications move data storage to the cloud, protecting sensitive data becomes increasingly important, especially for the Internet of Things (IoT) environments. Ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) is a practical approach for confidentiality and secure access control for data outsourced to the cloud. However, the underlying CP-ABE operations based on bilinear pairings are too demanding for resource-constrained IoT devices. Furthermore, applications such as Industrial IoT (IIoT) have requirements (efficiency, operative, and security) that existing CP-ABE proposals cannot fulfill, and advanced IoT architectures (e.g., fog computing) have not been well-exploited. This paper proposes a novel CP-ABE scheme suitable for IoT scenarios, using an IIoT generic model as a reference. It targets multiple attribute authorities, outsourced encryption and decryption to fog nodes, user revocation, and asymmetric pairings constructions to achieve recommended security levels. As the main distinctive, revocation is defined using a broadcast encryption-based approach, allowing data owners to enforce user revocation over their outsourced data. According to the performance analysis, the proposed scheme achieves high efficiency for IoT nodes. It is also competitive in terms of storage, bandwidth, and computation efficiency compared to previous proposals. Moreover, the security of the suggested construction is demonstrated against chosen-plaintext attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-recovery schemes identify and restore tampering, using as a reference a compressed representation of a signal embedded into itself. In addition, audio self-recovery must comply with a transparency threshold, adequate for applications such as on-line music distribution or speech transmission. In this manuscript, an audio self-recovery scheme is proposed. Auditory masking properties of the signals are used to determine the frequencies that better mask the embedding distortion. Frequencies in the Fourier domain are mapped to the intDCT domain for embedding and extraction of reference bits for signal restoration. The contribution of this work is the use of auditory masking properties for the frequency selection and the mapping to the intDCT domain. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme satisfies a threshold of -2 ODG, suitable for audio applications. The efficacy of the scheme, in terms of its restoration capabilities, is also shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In reversible data hiding (RDH) schemes for images, the overflow/underflow problem must be considered to ensure reversibility. Existing techniques to avoid this problem seem to be sensitive to the working principle of a particular RDH scheme, and their performance may be adequate only when the number of problematic pixels, i.e., pixels at risk of overflow, is small or moderate compared to the total number of pixels in the image. However, when the number of problematic pixels is significantly large, the size of the recovery information needed to restore the original image increases significantly, and the performance of the RDH implementation could be affected. This paper presents an adaptive method for generating a flag array of recovery information to avoid the overflow problem. The results show that the proposed method is suitable for images with a high rate of problematic pixels since it produces much smaller recovery information streams than existing techniques. Additionally, the proposed technique allows exploiting problematic pixels during the embedding stage, increasing the effective capacity. Furthermore, the proposed method is tested with different RDH schemes and different pixel modification amplitudes, and it can preserve the structural quality of the processed images. • An overflow prevention method for reversible data hiding on images is proposed. • The image histogram is shrunk towards the center producing the optimal flag array. • The size of generated recovery information is smaller compared to previous methods. • The proposed method is suitable for images with many pixels at overflow risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Demographic, clinical, and morphological characteristics of cutaneous melanoma are unknown for the Colombian population. We aim to provide these characteristics as well as population-based incidence and survival data. Methods All patients with an invasive cutaneous melanoma diagnosed in the period 2000-2009 registered in the population-based cancer registry of the metropolitan area of Bucaramanga were included for analysis ( n = 169). Age-standardized incidence rates were calculated and melanoma-specific and overall survival estimated with follow-up until June 9, 2016, using Kaplan-Meier methodology, stratifying for gender, anatomical localization, and type of affiliation to the social security system. Results The age-standardized melanoma incidence rate was 1.7 per 100,000, with lower limbs being the most affected body sites (42.6% of all melanomas). A high proportion of melanomas presented on the plants or palms (16%) and under the nails (7.1%); at least 24.3% of melanomas were ulcerated, and 21.1% had a Breslow thickness more than 2 mm. Melanoma-specific 5-year survival was 79.3%, with worst survival for melanomas localized on the plants (64.6%) and subungual areas (55.6%). Affiliation to the subsidized type of affiliation to the social security system was statistically significantly ( P = 0.003) associated with poorer survival (68.8%) compared to the special regimes (95.8%). Conclusions Melanoma is a relatively rare cancer in Colombia with mainly the acral sites, high proportion of thick and ulcerated melanomas, and relatively poor survival being distinct features, indicating the need for tailor-made primary and secondary prevention strategies. Better training of pathologists in the difficult field of melanoma would improve precision of available data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The basal cell carcinoma is the most frequent malignant tumor of the skin, in the last years there has been an increase in its incidence and a greater number of atypical cases. Objective: To describe the epidemiological behavior of the basal cell carcinoma in the Metropolitan Area of Bucaramanga for the year 2014. Methods: A retrospective population-based study of cases of basal cell carcinoma diagnosed by histopathology from January 1st to December 31st of 2014, in patients residents of the Metropolitan Area of Bucaramanga. Results: One-thousand six-hundred and sixty-nine patients were recruited with basal cell carcinoma diagnosed by histopathology, with an average age of 68.2 years. Fifty-four point six per cent of the patients were women, and the most frequent age group was 70-79 years (26.6%). The standardized incidence rate was 124.2 per 100,000 people per year for the general population, with a women' standardized incidence rate of 118.2 per 100,000 people per year, and for men of 133 per 100.000 people per year. The face and neck were the most affected areas (86.8%), and the most common histopathological types were solid and mixed. Conclusions: The incidence of basal cell carcinoma in the Metropolitan Area of Bucaramanga has shown an increase in the incidence from 2000 to 2014 year, without changes in its distribution. It draws attention to the finding of atypical cases of basal cell carcinoma in areas not exposed to light and special locations, as well as the predominance of cases in men under 40 years of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Passive content fingerprinting is widely used for video content identification and monitoring. However, many challenges remain unsolved especially for partial-copies detection. The main challenge is to find the right balance between the computational cost of fingerprint extraction and fingerprint dimension, without compromising detection performance against various attacks (robustness). Fast video detection performance is desirable in several modern applications, for instance, in those where video detection involves the use of large video databases or in applications requiring real-time video detection of partial copies, a process whose difficulty increases when videos suffer severe transformations. In this context, conventional fingerprinting methods are not fully suitable to cope with the attacks and transformations mentioned before, either because the robustness of these methods is not enough or because their execution time is very high, where the time bottleneck is commonly found in the fingerprint extraction and matching operations. Motivated by these issues, in this work we propose a content fingerprinting method based on the extraction of a set of independent binary global and local fingerprints. Although these features are robust against common video transformations, their combination is more discriminant against severe video transformations such as signal processing attacks, geometric transformations and temporal and spatial desynchronization. Additionally, we use an efficient multilevel filtering system accelerating the processes of fingerprint extraction and matching. This multilevel filtering system helps to rapidly identify potential similar video copies upon which the fingerprint process is carried out only, thus saving computational time. We tested with datasets of real copied videos, and the results show how our method outperforms state-of-the-art methods regarding detection scores. Furthermore, the granularity of our method makes it suitable for partial-copy detection; that is, by processing only short segments of 1 second length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Minorities have lower adherence to cardiovascular medications and have worst cardiovascular outcomes post coronary stent placement OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to compare the efficacy of phone-delivered Motivational Interviewing (MINT) to an educational video at improving adherence to antiplatelet medications among insured minorities. DESIGN: This was a randomized study. PARTICIPANTS: We identified minorities with a recently placed coronary stent from an administrative data set by using a previously validated algorithm. INTERVENTIONS: MINT subjects received quarterly phone calls and the DVD group received a one-time mailed video. MAIN MEASURES: Outcome variables were collected at baseline and at 12-month post-stent, using surveys and administrative data. The primary outcome was antiplatelet (clopidogrel and prasugrel) adherence measured by Medication Possession Ratio (MPR) and self- reported adherence (Morisky score). We also measured appropriate adherence defined as an MPR ≥ 0.80. KEY RESULTS: We recruited 452 minority subjects with a new coronary stent (44 % Hispanics and 56 % Black). The patients had a mean age of 69.5 ± 8.8, 58 % were males, 78 % had an income lower than $30,000 per year and only 22 % had achieved high school education or higher. The MPR for antiplatelet medications was 0.77 for the MINT group compared to 0.70 for the DVD group ( p < 0.05). The percentage of subjects with adequate adherence to their antiplatelet medication was 64 % in the MINT group and 50 % in the DVD group ( p < 0.01). Self-reported adherence at 12 months was higher in the MINT group compared to the DVD group ( p < 0.01). Results were similar among drug-eluting stent (DES) recipients. CONCLUSIONS: Among racial minorities, a phone-based motivational interview is effective at improving adherence to antiplatelet medications post coronary stent placement. Phone-based MINT seems to be a promising and cost-effective strategy to modify risk behaviors among minority populations at high cardiovascular risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Species persistence in human-altered landscapes can depend on factors operating at multiple spatial scales. To understand anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity, it is useful to examine relationships between species traits and their responses to land-use change. A key knowledge gap concerns whether these relationships vary depending on the scale of response under consideration. We examined how local- and large-scale habitat variables influence the occupancy dynamics of a bird community in cloud forest zones in the Colombian Chocó-Andes. Using data collected across a continuum of forest and agriculture, we examined which traits best predict species responses to local variation in farmland and which traits best predict species responses to isolation from contiguous forest. Global range size was a strong predictor of species responses to agriculture at both scales; widespread species were less likely to decline as local habitat cover decreased and as distance from forest increased. Habitat specialization was a strong predictor of species responses only at the local scale. Open-habitat species were particularly likely to increase as pasture increased, but they were relatively insensitive to variation in distance to forest. Foraging plasticity and flocking behavior were strong predictors of species responses to distance from forest, but not their responses to local habitat. Species with lower plasticity in foraging behaviors and obligate flock-following species were more likely to decline as distance from contiguous forest increased. For species exhibiting these latter traits, persistence in tropical landscapes may depend on the protection of larger contiguous blocks of forest, rather than the integration of smaller-scale woodland areas within farmland. Species listed as threatened or near threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List were also more likely to decline in response to both local habitat quality and isolation from forest relative to least-concern species, underlining the importance of contiguous forests for threatened taxa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate whether health insurance affiliation and socioeconomic deprivation is associated with overall cause survival from gastric cancer in a middle-income country. Methods: All patients resident in the Bucaramanga metropolitan area (Colombia) diagnosed with gastric cancer between 2003 and 2009 (n = 1039), identified in the population-based cancer registry, were followed for vital status until 31/12/2013. Kaplan-Meier models provided crude survival estimates by health insurance regime (HIR) and social stratum (SS). Multivariate Cox-proportional hazard models adjusting HIR and SS for sex, age and tumor grade, were performed. Results: Overall 1 and 5 year survival proportions were 32.4% and 11.0%, respectively, varying from 49.3% and 15.8% for patients affiliated to the most generous HIR to 12.9% and 5.3% for unaffiliated patients, and from 41.4% and 20.7% for patients in the highest SS, versus 27.1% and 7.4% for the lowest SS. The multivariate analyses showed type of HIR as well as SS to remain independently associated with survival, with an 11% improvement in survival for each increase in SS subgroup (HR 0.89 (95% CI 0.83; 0.96), and with worse survival in the subsidized (least generous) HIR and unaffiliated patients compared to the contributory HIR (HR subsidized 1.20 (95% CI 1.00; 1.43) and HR not affiliated 2.03 (95% CI 1.48; 2.78)). Of the non-affiliated patients, 60% had died at the time of diagnosis, versus 4-14% of affiliated patients (p < 0.0005). Conclusions: Despite the 'universal' health insurance system, large socioeconomic differences in gastric cancer survival exist in Colombia. Both social stratum and access to effective diagnostic and curative care strongly influence survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collusion-resistant fingerprinting paradigm seems to be a practical solution to the piracy problem as it allows media owners to detect any unauthorized copy and trace it back to the dishonest users. Despite the billionaire losses in the music industry, most of the collusion-resistant fingerprinting systems are devoted to digital images and very few to audio signals. In this paper, state-of-the-art collusion-resistant fingerprinting ideas are extended to audio signals and the corresponding parameters and operation conditions are proposed. Moreover, in order to carry out fingerprint detection using just a fraction of the pirate audio clip, block-based embedding and its corresponding detector is proposed. Extensive simulations show the robustness of the proposed system against average collusion attack. Moreover, by using an efficient Fast Fourier Transform core and standard computer machines it is shown that the proposed system is suitable for real-world scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Cancer is an important cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Population-based cancer registries (PBCRs) make possible to estimate the burden of this condition. Aim: To estimate cancer incidence and mortality rates in the Bucaramanga Metropolitan Area (BMA) during 2003-2007. Methods: Incident cases of invasive cancer diagnosed during 2003-2007 were identified from the Bucaramanga Metropolitan Area PBCR (BMA-PBCR). Population counts and mortality were obtained from the Colombian National Administrative Department of Statistics (NADS). We estimated total and cancer-specific crude incidence and mortality rates by age group and sex, as well as age-standardized (Segi's world population) incidence (ASIR[W]) and mortality (ASMR[W]) rates. Statistical analyses were conducted using CanReg4 and Stata/IC 10.1. Results: We identified 8,225 new cases of cancer excluding non-melanoma skin cancer (54.3% among women). Of all cases, 6,943 (84.4%) were verified by microscopy and 669 (8.1%) were detected only by death certificate. ASIR(W) for all invasive cancers was 162.8 per 100,000 women and 177.6 per 100,000 men. Breast, cervix, colorectal, stomach and thyroid were the most common types of cancer in women. In men, the corresponding malignancies were prostate, stomach, colorectal, lung and lymphoma. ASMR(W) was 84.5 per 100,000 person-years in women and 106.2 per 100,000 person-years in men. Breast and stomach cancer ranked first as causes of death in those groups, respectively. Conclusion: Overall, mortality rates in our region are higher than national estimates possibly due to limited effectiveness of secondary prevention strategies. Our work emphasizes the importance of maintaining high-quality, nationwide PBCRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Cancer is an important cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Population-based cancer registries (PBCRs) make possible to estimate the burden of this condition. Aim: To estimate cancer incidence and mortality rates in the Bucaramanga Metropolitan Area (BMA) during 2003-2007. Methods: Incident cases of invasive cancer diagnosed during 2003-2007 were identified from the Bucaramanga Metropolitan Area PBCR (BMA-PBCR). Population counts and mortality were obtained from the Colombian National Administrative Department of Statistics (NADS). We estimated total and cancer-specific crude incidence and mortality rates by age group and sex, as well as age-standardized (Segi's world population) incidence (ASIR[W]) and mortality (ASMR[W]) rates. Statistical analyses were conducted using CanReg4 and Stata/IC 10.1. Results: We identified 8,225 new cases of cancer excluding non-melanoma skin cancer (54.3% among women). Of all cases, 6,943 (84.4%) were verified by microscopy and 669 (8.1%) were detected only by death certificate. ASIR(W) for all invasive cancers was 162.8 per 100,000 women and 177.6 per 100,000 men. Breast, cervix, colorectal, stomach and thyroid were the most common types of cancer in women. In men, the corresponding malignancies were prostate, stomach, colorectal, lung and lymphoma. ASMR(W) was 84.5 per 100,000 person-years in women and 106.2 per 100,000 person-years in men. Breast and stomach cancer ranked first as causes of death in those groups, respectively. Conclusion: Overall, mortality rates in our region are higher than national estimates possibly due to limited effectiveness of secondary prevention strategies. Our work emphasizes the importance of maintaining high-quality, nationwide PBCRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hair diseases have become a frequent cause of consult and the dermatologist is confronted with its management. This guide pretends to give a trendsseries of indications for the clinical management of the patient, and for the therapeutic treatment based on clinical studies and author's experience. We emphasize on frequent diseases such as alopecia areata, telogen effluvium, male and female androgenic alopecia and scarring alopecia [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Applications of wireless communications networks are emerging continuously. To offer a good level of security in these applications, new standards for wireless communications propose solutions based on cryptographic algorithms working on special modes of operation. This work presents a custom hardware architecture for the AES-CCM protocol (AES-CCMP) which is the basis for the security architecture of the IEEE 802.11i standard. AES-CCMP is based on the AES-CCM algorithm that performs the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) in CTR with CBC-MAC mode (CCM mode), plus specialized data formatting modules, providing different security services through iterative and complex operations. Results of implementing the proposed architecture targeting FPGA devices are presented and discussed. A comparison against similar works shows significant improvements in terms of both throughput and efficiency. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Purpose: To improve the effectiveness of behavioral interventions for Hispanic young adults, we studied their perceived risks for HIV infection, lifetime and more recent sexual experiences, use of condoms, and HIV-antibody testing histories. Methods: Logistic regression was used to analyze computer-assisted telephone-interview surveys of 1,596 randomly selected Hispanic residents of 12 high AIDS-incidence ZIP-code areas. Results: After we controlled for gender, age, marital status, educational attainment, and language of preference, differences were found by country of origin. Those coming from Peru (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=3.45; 95%CI=1.85–6.43) and Colombia (AOR=1.94; 95%CI=1.12–3.36) were more likely than U.S.-native Hispanics to perceive their risk of acquiring HIV as above average. Sexually active Mexicans (AOR=1.80; 95%CI=1.04–3.10) were significantly more likely than U.S. natives to have used a condom in the past 12 months. Young adults coming from Puerto Rico (AOR=0.55; 95%CI=0.33–0.91) were less likely than U.S.-native Hispanics to have ever been tested for HIV. Virginity and sexual abstinence were unrelated to country of origin, but respondents interviewed in Spanish were more likely than those interviewed in English to be sexually active (AOR=2.57; 95%=1.39–4.75). Conclusions: To maximize the impact of behavioral interventions, risk-reduction programs must adjust for social and cultural differences within the Hispanic-American population. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A hardware architecture for GF(2 m ) multiplication and its evaluation in a hardware architecture for elliptic curve scalar multiplication is presented. The architecture is a parameterizable digit-serial implementation for any field order m. Area/performance trade-off results of the hardware implementation of the multiplier in an FPGA are presented and discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article discusses the educational strategy of subsidizing private schools in expanding school enrollment. This strategy was applied by the city of Bogotá, Colombia, where the city benefited in meeting its commitment to universal access to primary schooling. The author then provides a brief summary of Bogotá's recent strategy, as well as discusses previous research on the effects of class size, peer group composition, and teacher characteristics, particularly in Latin America, with a special focus on the studies that have used the most credible research designs.

Examines the importance of medical-error reporting for patient safety enhancement in the U.S. Development of Factor Relevance Matrix; Implementation of computerized physician order-entry systems; Factors affecting the medical-error reporting. INSET: PRACTITIONER APPLICATION, by R. Reed Fraley.

Content identification systems are an essential technology for many applications. These systems identify query multimedia items using a database of known identities. A hash-based system uses a perceptual hashing function that generates a hash value invariant against a set of expected manipulations in an image, later compared to perform identification. Usually, this set of manipulations is well-known, and the researcher creates the perceptual hashing function that best adapts to the set. However, a new manipulation may break the hashing function, requiring to create a new one, which may be costly and time-consuming. Therefore, we propose to let the hashing function learn an invariant feature space automatically. For this, we exploit the recent advances in self-supervised learning, where a model uses unlabeled data to generate a feature representation by solving a metric learning-based pretext task that enforces the robust image hashing properties for content identification systems. To achieve model transferability on unseen data, our pretext task enforces the feature vector invariance against the manipulation set, and through random sampling on the unlabeled training set, we present the model a wide variety of perceptual information to work on. As exhaustive experimentation shows, this method achieves excellent robustness against a comprehensive set of manipulations, even difficult ones such as horizontal flip and rotation, with excellent identification performance. Also, the trained model is highly discriminative against the presence of near-duplicate images. Furthermore, this method does not need re-training or fine-tuning on a new dataset to achieve the observed performance, indicating an excellent generalization capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En Colombia los bosques nativos de los Andes, han sufrido históricamente una fuerte deforestación y han sido reemplazados por extensas áreas de uso agrícola y ganadero. En una región céntrica, dedicada principalmente al cultivo de café, ganadería y hostigada por la violencia; nace la Reserva Natural Camino Verde. Está ubicada en la vereda Guacimales, provincia de Tequendama en el municipio de Viotá (Cundinamarca). Esta originalmente de uso ganadero, en la que se adelanta un proyecto de restauración ecológica, activa y pasiva [1], donde se transformó potreros sembrados por pastos brachiaria (Urochloa decumbens (Stapf) R.D. Webster), india (Urochloa maxima (Jacq.) R. Webster) y estrella (Cynodon plectostachyus (K. Schum.) Pilg.) en bosques. En la restauración activa se utilizó zonas no intervenidas, zonas dominadas por pasto africano (Alopecurus sp.) y vara verde (Piper sp.); se sembraron especies nativas de la zona [2], como Ceibas, Caracolíes, Iguás, samanes (Samanea saman (Jacq.) Merr.), cámbulos (Erythrina poeppigiana (Walp.) O.F. Cook.) entre otros; así como especies de la Orinoquía y Amazonía, como avichure (Couma macrocarpa Barb. Rodr.), Coco de mono (Eschweilera tenuifolia (O. Berg) Miers), Majagüillo (Xylopia discreta (L.) Sprague & Hutch.), Cedro achapo (Cedrelinga cateniformis (Ducke) Ducke), Saladillo (Caraipa llanorum Cuatrec.), Aceite (Copaifera pubiflora Benth.), Quinaquino (Myrospermum frutescens Jacq.), entre otros; en regeneración pasiva se implementaron núcleos de regeneración de 5 x 6 m. eliminando plantas invasoras y permitiendo el crecimiento de especies pioneras; se dejaron perchas para aves que incrementan la dispersión de semillas; finalmente en la determinación de la riqueza florística, consistió en recorridos aleatorios; las especies raras se colectaron y fueron depositadas en el Herbario Federico Medem del Instituto Alexander Von Humboldt. Se registró 219 especies (104 especies son nativas), 159 géneros y 60 familias siendo Leguminosae, Arecaceae, Malvaceae, Bignoniaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Rubiaceae y Apocynaceae las más diversas; los géneros con mayores especies son Handroanthus, Bactris, Anthurium, Senna, Protium, Brownea, Ormosia, Pseudobombax, Passiflora, Piper y Pouteria. El estrato emergente es el más preponderante alcanzando 25 m de altura. Los usos identificados se catalogan en ornamental, maderable, protector, alimenticio, medicinal, artesanal, sombrío, leña y forraje. 48 especies presentan algún grado de amenaza. La riqueza de especies es alta, considerando que la reserva viene de un proceso de producción de ganado y que el número de especies encontradas, pueden ser mayor. Hasta el momento se tiene erradicado el 80% de la cobertura de pastos introducidos y se ha restaurado un 90% del área de la reserva. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The proposed metrics help to know if a VPK set will be useful to watermark the data. • There is no need to perform the WM embedding to know if the VPK set is good. • The cyclic idea of the attribute order helps to design an effective VPK scheme. • The WM is detected even after being deleted more than one attribute of R. Most of the watermarking techniques designed to protect relational data often use the Primary Key (PK) of relations to perform the watermark synchronization. Despite offering high confidence to the watermark detection, these approaches become useless if the PK can be erased or updated. A typical example is when an attacker wishes to use a stolen relation, unlinked to the rest of the database. In that case, the original values of the PK lose relevance, since they are not employed to check the referential integrity. Then, it is possible to erase or replace the PK, compromising the watermark detection with no need to perform the slightest modification on the rest of the data. To avoid the problems caused by the PK-dependency some schemes have been proposed to generate Virtual Primary Keys (VPK) used instead. Nevertheless, the quality of the watermark synchronized using VPKs is compromised due to the presence of duplicate values in the set of VPKs and the fragility of the VPK schemes against the elimination of attributes. In this paper, we introduce the metrics to allow precise measuring of the quality of the VPKs generated by any scheme without requiring to perform the watermark embedding. This way, time waste can be avoided in case of low-quality detection. We also analyze the main aspects to design the ideal VPK scheme, seeking the generation of high-quality VPK sets adding robustness to the process. Finally, a new scheme is presented along with the experiments carried out to validate and compare the results with the rest of the schemes proposed in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Köppen-Geiger classification is one of the most common climate classification systems in the world. It allows classifying ecosystem distribution based on temperature and precipitation, two critical factors in climate, and vegetation cover's sensitivity. We analyzed the dynamics and spatial consistency of agroclimatic variables in each type of Köppen- Geiger climate present in Chile, visualizing the variables' behavior throughout the territory. Thus, we computed the trends of different climate and agroclimatic variables in each meteorological station, mapping their slope and statistical significance, and comparing their sense among all those that belong to the same climate zone. Our global trends analysis showed a thermal amplitude decrease in northern and central areas in about 12.03% and 20.3%, respectively, and an increase in south and southern areas in about 13.7% and 26.3%. A generalized increase in frost events (2.90%-16.02%) took place mainly in the country's northern part. Results showed higher concordance percentages in stations belonging to the Köppen-Geiger type B (dry climate) and C (temperate climate). Thus, an increase in the maximum temperature occurred from north-central to south zones, a decrease in minimum temperature from north to central zone, and an increase in highlands (700-4000 m a.s.l.), central, south, and southern zone of the country. Also, a precipitation decrease and thermal amplitude increased roughly from the Coquimbo Region to the country's central and southern zone. Variations in the agroclimatic indices' behavior can affect yield and production of crops; thus, agroclimatic information presented here can support the zoning and selection of the cropping system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Image content identification systems have many applications in industry and academia. In particular, a hash-based content identification system uses a robust image hashing function that computes a short binary identifier summarizing the perceptual content in a picture and is invariant against a set of expected manipulations while being capable of differentiating between different pictures. A common approach to designing these algorithms is crafting a processing pipeline by hand. Unfortunately, once the context changes, the researcher may need to define a new function to adapt. A deep hashing approach exploits the feature learning capabilities in deep networks to generate a feature vector that summarizes the perceptual content in the image, achieving outstanding performance for the image retrieval task, which requires measuring semantic and perceptual similarity between items. However, its application to robust content identification systems is an open area of opportunity. Also, image hashing functions are valuable tools for image authentication. However, to our knowledge, its application to content-preserving manipulation detection for image forensics tasks is still an open research area. In this work, we propose a deep hashing method exploiting the metric learning capabilities in contrastive self-supervised learning with a new modular loss function for robust image hashing. Moreover, we propose a novel approach for content-preserving manipulation detection for image forensics through a sensitivity component in our loss function. We validate our method through extensive experimentation in different data sets and configurations, validating the generalization properties in our work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En Colombia los bosques nativos de los Andes, han sufrido históricamente una fuerte deforestación y han sido reemplazados por extensas áreas de uso agrícola y ganadero. En una región céntrica, dedicada principalmente al cultivo de café, ganadería y hostigada por la violencia; nace la Reserva Natural Camino Verde. Está ubicada en la vereda Guacimales, provincia de Tequendama en el municipio de Viotá (Cundinamarca). Esta originalmente de uso ganadero, en la que se adelanta un proyecto de restauración ecológica, activa y pasiva [1], donde se transformó potreros sembrados por pastos brachiaria (Urochloa decumbens (Stapf) R.D. Webster), india (Urochloa maxima (Jacq.) R. Webster) y estrella (Cynodon plectostachyus (K. Schum.) Pilg.) en bosques. En la restauración activa se utilizó zonas no intervenidas, zonas dominadas por pasto africano (Alopecurus sp.) y vara verde (Piper sp.); se sembraron especies nativas de la zona [2], como Ceibas, Caracolíes, Iguás, samanes (Samanea saman (Jacq.) Merr.), cámbulos (Erythrina poeppigiana (Walp.) O.F. Cook.) entre otros; así como especies de la Orinoquía y Amazonía, como avichure (Couma macrocarpa Barb. Rodr.), Coco de mono (Eschweilera tenuifolia (O. Berg) Miers), Majagüillo (Xylopia discreta (L.) Sprague & Hutch.), Cedro achapo (Cedrelinga cateniformis (Ducke) Ducke), Saladillo (Caraipa llanorum Cuatrec.), Aceite (Copaifera pubiflora Benth.), Quinaquino (Myrospermum frutescens Jacq.), entre otros; en regeneración pasiva se implementaron núcleos de regeneración de 5 × 6 m. eliminando plantas invasoras y permitiendo el crecimiento de especies pioneras; se dejaron perchas para aves que incrementan la dispersión de semillas; finalmente en la determinación de la riqueza florística, consistió en recorridos aleatorios; las especies raras se colectaron y fueron depositadas en el Herbario Federico Medem del Instituto Alexander Von Humboldt. Se registró 219 especies (104 especies son nativas), 159 géneros y 60 familias siendo Leguminosae, Arecaceae, Malvaceae, Bignoniaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Rubiaceae y Apocynaceae las más diversas; los géneros con mayores especies son Handroanthus, Bactris, Anthurium, Senna, Protium, Brownea, Ormosia, Pseudobombax, Passiflora, Piper y Pouteria. El estrato emergente es el más preponderante alcanzando 25 m de altura. Los usos identificados se catalogan en ornamental, maderable, protector, alimenticio, medicinal, artesanal, sombrío, leña y forraje. 48 especies presentan algún grado de amenaza. La riqueza de especies es alta, considerando que la reserva viene de un proceso de producción de ganado y que el número de especies encontradas, pueden ser mayor. Hasta el momento se tiene erradicado el 80% de la cobertura de pastos introducidos y se ha restaurado un 90% del área de la reserva. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflammatory skin disorder that involves infundibulofollicular dysfunction and abnormal immune response. It has a peak incidence between the second and third decades of life and clinically presents as painful, chronic, and recurrent suppurative lesions in the intertriginous areas, which evolve into sinuous tracts and deforming scar bands with a remarkable impact on quality of life. This article is a comprehensive review of the state of the art of HS. This second part includes diagnosis, classification, and treatment. Materials and methods: For this narrative review, a complete literature search was carried out in three databases (PubMed, Science Direct, and EMBASE), from 2001 to 2023, including articles published in English and Spanish. Results: A total of 72 articles published from 2001 to 2023 were included and reviewed in full text. Conclusion: HS is a complex disease, and assessing the severity of the disease clinically and by ultrasonography is essential. The Hurley scale and the modified Sartorious scale are the most used, but new scales are emerging that are useful for assessing patients with this pathology and help define the choice of different therapeutic options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new species of Coelosis is described from the Macuira Mountains, Guajira Peninsula, northern Colombia. A character comparison between this new and other previously known Colombian species in the genus is presented. A key for the identification and distributional map for Colombian species of Coelosis is provided, as well as a key for the genera included in the tribe Oryctini in Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an accurate Sequential-Patterns based Classifier, called SPaC-NF, is proposed. SPaC-NF introduces a new pruning strategy, using the Netconf as measure of interest, that allows to prune the rules search space for building specific rules with high Netconf. Additionally, a new strategy for generating the Sequential-Patterns based Rules and a new way of ordering them based on their rule sizes and Netconf values is introduced in SPaC-NF. The ordering strategy together with the "Best K rules" satisfaction mechanism allows SPaC-NF to have better accuracy than SVM, J48, NaiveBayes and PART classifiers. Most of these classifiers were evaluated using Weka, a popular suite of machine learning software. The experiments were done using ten-fold cross-validation, reporting the average over the ten folds. Similar to other works, experiments were conducted using several document collections, three in our case: AFP, TDT and Reuter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In data mining, Frequent Itemsets Mining is a technique used in several domains with notable results. However, the large volume of data in modern datasets increases the processing time of Frequent Itemset Mining algorithms, making them unsuitable for many real-world applications. Accordingly, proposing new methods for Frequent Itemset Mining to obtain frequent itemsets in a realistic amount of time is still an open problem. A successful alternative is to employ hardware acceleration using Graphics Processing Units (GPU) and Field Programmable Gates Arrays (FPGA). In this article, a comprehensive review of the state of the art of Frequent Itemsets Mining hardware acceleration is presented. Several approaches (FPGA and GPU based) were contrasted to show their weaknesses and strengths. This survey gathers the most relevant and the latest research eforts for improving the performance of Frequent Itemsets Mining regarding algorithms advances and modern development platforms. Furthermore, this survey organizes the current research on Frequent Itemsets Mining from the hardware perspective considering the source of the data, the development platform, and the baseline algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two strategies are often promoted to mitigate the effects of agricultural expansion on biodiversity: one integrates wildlife-friendly habitats within farmland (land sharing), and the other intensifies farming to allow the offset of natural reserves (land sparing). Their relative merits for biodiversity protection have been subject to much debate, but no previous study has examined whether trade-offs between the two strategies depend on the proximity of farmed areas to large tracts of natural habitat., We sampled birds and dung beetles across contiguous forests and agricultural landscapes (low-intensity cattle farming) in a threatened hotspot of endemism: the Colombian Chocó-Andes. We test the hypothesis that the relative biodiversity benefits of either strategy depend partially on the degree to which farmlands are isolated from large contiguous blocks of forest., We show that distance from forest mediates the occurrence of many species within farmland. For the majority of species, occurrence on farmland depends on both isolation from forest and the proportionate cover of small-scale wildlife-friendly habitats within the farm landscape, with both variables having a similar overall magnitude of effect on occurrence probabilities., Simulations suggest that the biodiversity benefits of land sharing decline significantly with increasing distance from forest, but land sparing benefits remain consistent. In farm management units situated close to large contiguous forest (<500 m), land sharing is predicted to provide equal benefits to land sparing, but land sparing becomes increasingly superior in management units situated further from forest (1500 m). The predicted biodiversity benefits of land sparing are similar across all distances, provided that sparing mechanisms genuinely deliver protection for contiguous forest tracts., Synthesis and applications. The persistence of bird and dung beetle communities in low-intensity pastoral agriculture is strongly linked to the proximity of surrounding contiguous forests. Land-sharing policies that promote the integration of small-scale wildlife-friendly habitats might be of limited benefit without simultaneous measures to protect larger blocks of natural habitat, which could be achieved via land-sparing practices. Policymakers should carefully consider the extent and distribution of remaining contiguous natural habitats when designing agri-environment schemes in the tropics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents a high payload data-hiding scheme for audio signals following the OFDM concept. It is based on changing the phase component of the audio signal via a reduced-arc M-order Phase Shift Keying (MPSK) modulator on selected frequency samples of the audio signal. This approach allows the data-hiding payload and perceptual distortion to be controlled by the number of altered frequency components of the audio signal and the severity of this alteration. The data-hiding payload can be estimated a priori independently of the audio signal features. In addition, due to the relation of the proposed scheme with the traditional use of MPSK modulation, the BER of the encoded data is analytically derived, therefore, it is known in advance. This allows the transmission of reliable hidden data, in contrast to previous works. Results obtained with representative test cases show that the proposed algorithm provides an increase of one order of magnitude in data payload compared with state-of-the-art works. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Objective Evaluate the accuracy of an algorithm at identifying ethnic minorities from administrative claims for enrollment into a clinical trial. Data Sources/Study Setting Claims data from a health benefits company. Study Design We compared results of a three-step algorithm to self-reported race/ethnicity. Data Collection/Extraction Methods Using the algorithm, we identified subjects with high probability of being minority and ascertained self-reported race/ethnicity. Principal Findings We identified 164 subjects as likely minority based on our algorithm. Of these, 94 completed the survey and 87 identified themselves as black or Hispanic. The positive predictive value of the algorithm was 93 percent (CI: 85-97). Conclusions Claims data can be used to efficiently identify minorities for participation in clinical trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examines the role of ethnic differences in the perceived risks of HIV infection, sexual experiences and HIV-antibody testing histories among Blacks in Broward County, Florida. The authors reveal that they analyze data from 2,731 respondents 18-39 years old who indicated they were African Americans, Caribbean Islands and English-speaking Haitians. The results indicate that English-speaking Haitians reported never engaging in sexual intercourse than African Americans. Meanwhile, English-speaking Caribbean Islanders disclosed preventive behaviors that are the same to those African Americans.

Abstract: A linear sorter based on a first-in first-out (FIFO) scheme is presented. It is capable of discarding the oldest stored datum and inserting the incoming datum while keeping the rest of the stored data sorted in a single clock cycle. This type of sorter can be used as a co-processor or as a module in specialized architectures that continuously require to process data for non-linear filters based on order statistics. This FIFO sorting process is described by four different parallel functions that exploit the natural hardware parallelism. The architecture is composed of identical processing elements; thus it can be easily adapted to any data lengths, according to the specific application needs. The use of compact identical processing elements results in a high performance yet small architecture. Some examples are presented in order to understand the functionality and initialization of the proposed sorter. The results of synthesizing the proposed architecture targeting a field programmable gate array (FPGA) are presented and compared against other reported hardware-based sorters. The scalability results for several sorted elements with different bits widths are also presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Modern cellular networks allow users to transmit information at high data rates, have access to IP-based networks deployed around the world, and access to sophisticated services. In this context, not only is it necessary to develop new radio interface technologies and improve existing core networks to reach success, but guaranteeing confidentiality and integrity during transmission is a must. The KASUMI block cipher lies at the core of both the f8 data confidentiality algorithm and the f9 data integrity algorithm for Universal Mobile Telecommunications System networks. KASUMI implementations must reach high performance and have low power consumption in order to be adequate for network components. This paper describes a specialized processor core designed to efficiently perform the KASUMI algorithm. Experimental results show two orders of magnitude performance improvement over software only based implementations. We describe the used design technique that can also be applied to implement other Feistel-like ciphering algorithms. The proposed architecture was implemented on a FPGA, results are presented and discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The increasing burden of cancer represents a substantial problem for Latin America and the Caribbean. Two Lancet Oncology Commissions in 2013 and 2015 highlighted potential interventions that could advance cancer care in the region by overcoming existing challenges. Areas requiring improvement included insufficient investment in cancer control, non-universal health coverage, fragmented health systems, inequitable concentration of cancer services, inadequate registries, delays in diagnosis or treatment initiation, and insufficient palliative services. Progress has been made in key areas but remains uneven across the region. An unforeseen challenge, the COVID-19 pandemic, strained all resources, and its negative effect on cancer control is expected to continue for years. In this Series paper, we summarise progress in several aspects of cancer control since 2015, and identify persistent barriers requiring commitment of additional resources to reduce the cancer burden in Latin America and the Caribbean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meeting rising demand for oil palm whilst minimizing the loss of tropical biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions is a core conservation challenge. One potential solution is focusing the expansion of high-yielding crops on presently low-yielding farmlands alongside protecting nearby tropical forests that can enhance provision of ecosystem functions. A key question is how this solution would impact invertebrate functional diversity. We focus on oil palm in the Colombian Llanos, where plantations are replacing improved cattle pastures and forest fragments, and on dung beetles, which play key functional roles in nutrient cycling and secondary seed dispersal. We show that functional richness and functional diversity of dung beetles is greater in oil palm than in cattle pasture, and that functional metrics did not differ between oil palm and remnant forest. The abundance-size class profile of dung beetles in oil palm was more similar to forest than to pasture, which had lower abundances of the smallest and largest dung beetles. The abundance of tunneling and rolling dung beetles did not differ between oil palm and forest, while higher forest cover increased the abundance of diurnal and generalist-feeding beetles in oil palm landscapes. This suggests that prioritizing agricultural development on low-yielding cattle pasture will have positive effects on functional diversity and highlights the need for forest protection to maintain ecosystem functioning within agricultural landscapes. • Oil palm dung beetle functional richness and diversity greater than cattle pasture. • Functional metrics did not differ between oil palm and remnant forest. • Abundance of diurnal and generalist beetles in oil palm increased with forest cover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVES: To compare outcomes and costs following skilled nursing facility (SNF) discharge for patients within a Medicare Advantage (MA) organization vs traditional Medicare (TM). STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective analysis of adults with a postacute SNF admission identified from MA claims (MA cohort: n = 56,228) and the Medicare 5% Limited Data Sets (TM cohort: n = 67,859). METHODS: Outcomes included hospitalization, proportion of days at home, and total medical costs during the 180 days post SNF discharge, and successful community discharge. Regression models accounted for patient characteristics and health care utilization in the 180 days prior to the proximal hospitalization and characteristics of the proximal hospitalization using backward variable selection and fixed effects for MA enrollment. To control for observable differences between individuals who selected MA vs TM, inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) was conducted. RESULTS: The MA cohort was younger than the TM cohort (median age, 77 vs 81 years), more likely to have qualified for Medicare based on disability (29% vs 20%), and less likely to have dual Medicare/Medicaid eligibility (16% vs 23%). After adjustment, MA was associated with 22% decreased odds of hospitalization during the 180 days post SNF discharge, 19% increased odds of successful community discharge, a 4% increase in the proportion of days at home (equating to 6.7 additional days), and a 24% decrease in medical costs post SNF discharge. Results using IPTW were similar. CONCLUSIONS: MA was associated with better outcomes and lower costs post SNF discharge, suggesting efficiencies in care for SNF patients with MA. Further research is needed to evaluate specific MA features that may lead to better value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming is having impacts across the Tree of Life. Understanding species' physiological sensitivity to temperature change and how they relate to local temperature variation in their habitats is crucial to determining vulnerability to global warming.We ask how species' vulnerability varies across habitats and elevations, and how climatically buffered microhabitats can contribute to reduce their vulnerability.We measured thermal sensitivity (critical thermal maximum—CTmax) of 14 species of Pristimantis frogs inhabiting young and old secondary, and primary forests in the Colombian Andes. Exposure to temperature stress was measured by recording temperature in the understorey and across five microhabitats. We determined frogs' current vulnerability across habitats, elevations and microhabitats accounting for phylogeny and then ask how vulnerability varies under four warming scenarios: +1.5, +2, +3 and +5°C.We found that CTmax was constant across species regardless of habitat and elevation. However, species in young secondary forests are expected to become more vulnerable because of increased exposure to higher temperatures. Microhabitat variation could enable species to persist within their thermal temperature range as long as regional temperatures do not surpass +2°C. The effectiveness of microhabitat buffering decreases with a 2–3°C increase, and is almost null under a 5°C temperature increase.Microhabitats will provide thermal protection to Andean frog communities from climate change by enabling tracking of suitable climates through short distance movement. Conservation strategies, such as managing landscapes by preserving primary forests and allowing regrowth and reconnection of secondary forest would offer thermally buffered microhabitats and aid in the survival of this group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a public database at SIB Colombia, the product of several studies about the diversity and complementarity of a butterfly community (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) in the El Romeral reserve, a protected area located southwest of the Aburrá Valley on the Central Cordillera in the department of Antioquia, Colombia. We report 69 species, 40 genera, 12 subfamilies and 5 families of butterflies in high Andean ecosystems, between 2250 and 2878 m a.s.l., including unique records and endemic species. The information is associated with specimens and barcode sequences in GenBank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several areas, such as physical and health sciences, require the use of matrices as fundamental tools for solving various problems. Matrices are used in real-life contexts, such as control, automation, and optimization, wherein results are expected to improve with increase of computational precision. However, special attention should be paid to ill-conditioned matrices, which can produce unstable systems; an inadequate handling of precision might worsen results since the solution found for data with errors might be too far from the one for data without errors besides increasing other costs in hardware resources and critical paths. In this paper, we make a wake-up call, using 2 × 2 matrices to show how ill-conditioning and precision can affect system design (resources, cost, etc.). We first demonstrate some examples of real-life problems where ill-conditioning is present in matrices obtained from the discretization of the operational equations (ill-posed in the sense of Hadamard) that model these problems. If these matrices are not handled appropriately (i.e., if ill-conditioning is not considered), large errors can result in the computed solutions to the systems of equations in the presence of errors. Furthermore, we illustrate the generated effect in the calculation of the inverse of an ill-conditioned matrix when its elements are approximated by truncation. We present two case studies to illustrate the effects on calculation errors caused by increasing or reducing precision to s digits. To illustrate the costs, we implemented the adjoint matrix inversion algorithm on different field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), namely, Spartan-7, Artix-7, Kintex-7, and Virtex-7, using the full-unrolling hardware technique. The implemented architecture is useful for analyzing trade-offs when precision is increased; this also helps analyze performance, efficiency, and energy consumption. By means of a detailed description of the trade-offs among these metrics, concerning precision and ill-conditioning, we conclude that the need for resources seems to grow not linearly when precision is increased. We also conclude that, if error is to be reduced below a certain threshold, it is necessary to determine an optimal precision point. Otherwise, the system becomes more sensitive to measurement errors and a better alternative would be to choose precision carefully, and/or to apply regularization or preconditioning methods, which would also reduce the resources required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]