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The success of a scientist depends on their production of scientific papers and the impact factor of the journal in which they publish. Because most major scientific journals are published in English, success is related to publishing in this language. Currently, 98% of publications in science are written in English, including researchers from English as a Foreign Language (EFL) countries. Colombia is among the countries with the lowest English proficiency in the world. Thus, understanding the disadvantages that Colombians face in publishing is crucial to reducing global inequality in science. This paper quantifies the disadvantages that result from the language hegemony in scientific publishing by examining the additional costs that communicating in English creates in the production of articles. It was identified that more than 90% of the scientific articles published by Colombian researchers are in English, and that publishing in a second language creates additional financial costs to Colombian doctoral students and results in problems with reading comprehension, writing ease and time, and anxiety. Rejection or revision of their articles because of the English grammar was reported by 43.5% of the doctoral students, and 33% elected not to attend international conferences and meetings due to the mandatory use of English in oral presentations. Finally, among the translation/editing services reviewed, the cost per article is between one-quarter and one-half of a doctoral monthly salary in Colombia. Of particular note, we identified a positive correlation between English proficiency and higher socioeconomic origin of the researcher. Overall, this study exhibits the negative consequences of hegemony of English that preserves the global gap in science. Although having a common language is important for science communication, generating multilinguistic alternatives would promote diversity while conserving a communication channel. Such an effort should come from different actors and should not fall solely on EFL researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hispanic Society Museum & Library (HSML) holds a collection of nine viceregal barniz de Pasto objects, made by Indigenous artisans in the 17th and 18th centuries. Designed to imitate Asian lacquers and intended for European aesthetic tastes, barniz de Pasto is an example of Indigenous technique and knowledge that has survived to the present day. An in-depth analysis of five of these barniz de Pasto objects, dated to the first half and last quarter of the 17th century based on their iconography, was carried out through a combination of non-invasive and micro-invasive techniques, including portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) spectroscopy to investigate the possible presence of inorganic pigments, and fiber-optics reflectance spectroscopy (FORS) and reflectance imaging spectroscopy (RIS) to provide molecular information on colorants and their distributions across the objects. Dyes and pigments were also identified using Raman spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS). The nature of the resin was determined by FTIR and pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS), while the decoration stratigraphy and composition were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). This paper confirms the use of mopa mopa, the resin used in the barniz de Pasto technique, in two objects not previously analyzed, and identifies indigo, insect-based red, calomel, lead white, and an unknown flavonol-based yellow dye, and challenges the use of calomel as a temporal marker for these works. Taken together, these results expand our understanding of the material use and explorations undertaken by artists during this time period to create such elaborate and enduring objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exploits the sharp escalation of violence in Colombia in the 1980s associated with the emergence of drug cartels to provide novel evidence on the long-run effects of violence exposure throughout the life-course, on children's educational attainment and academic achievement using administrative data. I find that, a higher homicide rate in early-childhood is associated with a higher probability of school dropout and conditional on completing high school, lower scores on a national end-of-high school exam. Results are robust to several falsification tests, and analyses of potential sources of selection bias. I provide supportive evidence that changes in fetal, child, and adolescent health outcomes are important potential mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) is a condition linked to severe cardiovascular and neuropsychological consequences, characterized by recurrent episodes of partial or complete upper airway obstruction during sleep, leading to compromised ventilation, hypoxemia, and micro-arousals. Polysomnography (PSG) serves as the gold standard for confirming OSAHS, yet its extended duration, high cost, and limited availability pose significant challenges. In this paper, we employ a range of machine learning techniques, including Neural Networks, Decision Trees, Random Forests, and Extra Trees, for OSAHS diagnosis. This approach aims to achieve a diagnostic process that is not only more accessible but also more efficient. The dataset utilized in this study consists of records from 601 adults assessed between 2014 and 2016 at a specialized sleep medical center in Colombia. This research underscores the efficacy of ensemble methods, specifically Random Forests and Extra Trees, achieving an area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve of 89.2% and 89.6%, respectively. Additionally, a web application has been devised, integrating the optimal model, empowering qualified medical practitioners to make informed decisions through patient registration, an input of 18 variables, and the utilization of the Random Forests model for OSAHS screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper opens the black box of policy co-production processes presented by the Colombian and Ecuadorian governments, regarding the traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources, in keeping with the necessities of Indigenous peoples. The purpose of this paper is to analyze what similarities and differences there exist in the role of the Ecuadorian and Colombian States as organizers, guarantors of plural expression, and facilitators of public deliberation, and how policymakers have opened the space for Indigenous peoples for producing traditional knowledge policy. The paper turns to qualitative research focused on collecting information from public actors. The data obtained assesses our working hypothesis that the role of the State in the production of traditional knowledge policy has been more democratic in Ecuador than in Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper identifies opportunities and challenges for leishmaniasis control and elimination in Colombia, emphasizing the role of pooled procurement of essential medicines and supplies. Colombia is among the countries most affected by leishmaniasis globally, and also faces the dual challenge of procuring critically needed medicines in the context of limited national resources. It recently renewed its commitment to the control and elimination of leishmaniasis under its 2022–2031 Public Health Plan (PDSP) through a comprehensive public health approach. Methodology/Principal findings: The methodology comprises a comprehensive literature review and key informant interviews with leishmaniasis experts from the Colombian national control program and PAHO/WHO, focusing on cutaneous, mucocutaneous, and visceral leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis is endemic throughout Colombia, with over 11 million people at risk, many of whom live in poverty-stricken, remote and isolated rural areas with limited access to health services. Leishmaniasis care, including medicines, is provided free of charge, but many barriers were nonetheless identified at environmental, population, and health system levels, including the supply of quality-assured medicines. Opportunities to alleviate these barriers were identified, including the support of the PAHO Strategic Fund. Within the context of the sustainable development goals and international leishmaniasis control and elimination targets, Colombian officials have established their own priorities, the highest of which is the reduction of deaths from visceral leishmaniasis. Conclusions/Significance: The elimination of leishmaniasis as a public health problem presents significant challenges, given its biological complexity and diversity, physical and clinical manifestations, social and economic impacts, frequently burdensome treatment regimens, and insufficient supply of necessary medicines. However, rigorous prevention and control efforts through strong political commitment and a highly motivated workforce can dramatically reduce its burden. Colombia's new PDSP, which highlights leishmaniasis control, is an opportunity for a revitalized health system response through committed leadership, intersectoral actions, and partnerships with international organizations that share a common vision. Author summary: Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne disease transmitted by female sand flies to humans and animals, causing infections ranging from asymptomatic and self-healing cutaneous leishmaniasis to visceral leishmaniasis which is highly lethal if untreated. Although all forms of leishmaniasis are treatable and curable with early diagnosis and treatment, the disease presents many challenges for affected populations, many of whom live in remote rural areas of the developing world, with limited access to public health facilities. Health services also face major constraints in supplying critically needed, yet costly medicines, in the context of limited financial resources. This paper presents the case of Colombia which is among the countries most affected by leishmaniasis globally, and discusses its many challenges in responding to the disease, including the guaranteed supply of necessary medicines. Our results uncover new opportunities for a revitalized health system response through committed leadership, intersectoral actions, such as a One Health approach, and partnerships with like-minded international organizations. These include Colombia's new 10-Year Public Health Plan that contains specific time-bound goals for leishmaniasis control and elimination as a public health problem, prioritizing a reduction in deaths from visceral leishmaniasis, and potential cost-savings from the acquisition of essential medicines and supplies through the Strategic Fund of the Pan American Health Organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implementing smart microgrids for Non-Interconnected Zones (NIZs) has become an alternative solution to provide electrical energy by taking advantage of the resources available through the generation of renewable energy within these isolated areas. Within this context, in this study, the challenges related to microgrids and data analysis are presented, and different relevant data architectures described in the literature are compared. This paper focuses on the design of a data architecture for a smart microgrid for NIZs whose microgrid contains two 260 W solar panels, a 480 W inverter, and two 260 Ah batteries. Regarding the Colombian context, this paper describes the limitations (connectivity, isolation, appropriation of technologies) and opportunities (low demand, access to natural resources, state interest) from which the functional and non-functional requirements for the architecture are established. Finally, a data architecture is proposed and implemented in a NIZ in Colombia, and this paper also includes a description of the architecture, its characteristics, its associated opportunities and challenges, and discussions regarding its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genetically modified (GM) crops have been on the market for almost 27 years and since the beginning have been protected by intellectual property (IP) rights that restrict their use and commercialization by third parties. In addition, their development is typically associated with elevated costs, making their production by public research institutions extremely difficult, especially in developing countries. Nevertheless, many patents for the first generation of GM crops have already expired, and others will do so soon, opening the path to generic GM crops. Using technologies in the public domain makes it possible to deliver GM seeds adapted to the local environment at affordable prices. This paper describes the development of the first Latin American off-patent GM corn and discusses the relevant IP and regulatory issues that allowed its commercial release in Colombia. The approach exposed here can be utilized for other crops or characteristics of agronomic interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern height systems are based on the combination of satellite positioning and gravity field models of high resolution. However, in many regions, especially developing or newly industrializing countries, there is no (reliable) regional gravity model at all, due to challenges such as limited data availability, unknown/low data quality, and missing metadata. This paper addresses this issue in a case study of Colombia, where eight decades of historical terrestrial and airborne gravity measurements are available but widely contain systematic errors, outliers, and biases. Correspondingly, processing strategies and structures are proposed and applied to validate and improve the quality of old gravity datasets. A novel method is developed based on spherical radial basis functions (SRBFs) for estimating biases, which are found in different airborne surveys with values exceeding 40 mGal. The validity of this bias estimation method is demonstrated both by a simulation test and by the evaluation of the airborne data in comparison to the SATOP (SAtellite-TOPography) model, which merges the satellite-only global gravity model GOCO06s with the Earth2014 topography model. The terrestrial and airborne data are then combined with a global gravity model (GGM), ultra-high-resolution topography models, as well as altimetry-derived gravity anomalies from DTU21GRA for the offshore areas. The results are presented in terms of height anomalies (QGeoidCOL2023), and they are thoroughly validated using GPS/leveling data both in the absolute and relative manner. The standard deviation in comparison to the GPS/leveling data after applying a correction surface to account for the datum inconsistencies amounts to 15.76 cm, which is 27% smaller compared to the mean standard deviation value given by five recent high-resolution GGMs, and 36% smaller than the one delivered by the latest South American quasi-geoid model QGEOID2021. The relative validation results show that QGeoidCOL2023 performs better, i.e., delivers lower RMS errors than the GGMs and QGEOID2021 in all the baseline length groups. These results indicate the validity and benefits of the developed methods and procedures, which can be used for other data-challenging areas to facilitate the realization of geopotential-based height systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a methodology to detect the coastal erosion and progradation effects in the 'Atrato River' delta, located in the Gulf of Urabá in Colombia, using SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) images. Erosion is the physical–mechanical loss of the soil that affects its functions and ecosystem services while producing a reduction in its productive capacity. Progradation is the deposition of layers in the basinward direction while moving coastward. Other studies have investigated these two phenomena using optical images, encountering difficulties due to the persistent presence of clouds in this region. In order to avoid the cloud effects, in this study, we used 16 Sentinel 1 SAR images with two different polarizations between 2016 and 2023. First, each image was rescaled from 0 to 255, then the image was despeckled by a deep learning (DL) model. Afterwards, a single RGB image was composed with the filtered polarizations. Next, a classifier with 99% accuracy based on Otsu's method was used to determine whether each pixel was water or not. Then, the classified image was registered to a reference one using Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF (ORB) descriptor. Finally, a multitemporal analysis was performed by comparing every image to the previous one to identify the studied phenomena, calculating areas. Also, all images were integrated to obtain a heatmap that showed the overall changes across eight years (2016–2023) in a single image. The multitemporal analysis performed found that the newly created mouth is the most active area for these processes, coinciding with other studies. In addition, a comparison of these findings with the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) showed a relative delayed coupling to the erosion process and a coupling of progradation with dry and wet seasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the peace accord on 26 September 2016 between the Colombian government and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), significant structural issues persisted in Colombia, such as state fragility, land distribution challenges, and rural impoverishment, all of which jeopardized sustainable peace. Previous disarmament events indicated potential shifts in violence and recidivism rates among ex-combatants. This paper aims to determine the likelihood that, in the post-conflict era with FARC, these ex-combatants would rearm themselves into new criminal factions. Employing a methodology by Paul Collier, the study utilized logit, probit, and panel data models with both fixed and random effects to evaluate the recidivism risk at the municipal level. A 1% increase in per capita municipal income decreased conflict probability due to the increased opportunity cost of disrupting economic endeavors. Conversely, 1% increases in potential conflict benefits from tax revenue and natural resource proceeds raised the probability of conflict by 40% and 17%, respectively. Key results indicate that economic advancement, as measured by per capita income, reduced the duration of paramilitary presence, whereas revenue from taxes and natural resources extended it at the municipal level in Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The migration of Venezuelans nationals to other Latin-American countries has been defined as the most significant migratory phenomenon in the recent story of the region, with Colombia being the country that hosts the highest number of Venezuelan nationals. From a human rights perspective, this article critically analyzes the response of the Colombian State to address migration from Venezuela. The objective of this article is to show that Colombia has preferred to govern this migration through the creation of ad hoc permits, instead of recognizing the need for international protection of this population and their status as refugees. To this end, this paper analyzes the Colombian regulatory framework on migration and refuge and, in particular, the response of the Colombian State to the migration of people from Venezuela. Its central argument is that the Colombian authorities have opted for the design and implementation of alternative measures of migratory regularization, as it was at the time the Special Permit of Permanence and is today the Permit for Temporary Protection. This article concludes by stating that the approach to Venezuelan migration has led to a clear detriment to the refugee system, today collapsed and with no prospect of reform or strengthening. This is so because the institutional design of the Colombian refuge entails a host of obstacles that discourage applicants from following this path, even when they require international protection. The authors of this paper use legal dogmatic as the main research methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature review shows research gaps into the food supply chain design. In that context, this paper deals with the design of a sustainable supply chain. A multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming model includes four decisions and three sustainable criteria (economic—total network costs—, environmental—carbon emissions—, and social—work conditions and societal development—). The model aims to determine the optimal location and capacity of processing and distribution facilities, to choose the suppliers from a set of potential candidates, to determine transportation modes between all the actors, and to define the quantity of product, in order to satisfy the demand of dairy products in a set of regions. The applicability of the model is tested in a realistic case in the dairy sector in the central region of Colombia. The results show the existent trade-offs between the three dimensions of sustainability. The unweighted balance results, giving more priority to the social dimension, which obtains the least deviation, affecting the environmental performance of the chain. The analysis carried out in this paper does help decision-makers that will have at hand a set of possible configurations to be chosen in order to comply with environmental and social regulations without neglecting economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper was to analyze the factorial structure, psychometric characteristics, and factorial invariance by sex, age, and city of the Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement Scale in young university students. A total of 1,431 young people between the ages of 18 and 30 (M = 20.86, SD = 3.64) from two Colombian cities participated in the study. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test four hypothesized models. The CFA confirmed a first-order factor structure grouping the eight mechanisms of moral disengagement (Model 4), which explained 54.17% of the total variance. The final model obtained a good fit, χ2 = 12.514, RMSEA =.010, TLI =.999, AGFI =.993, CFI = 1.00, ECVI =.044, CMIN/df = 1.138. Factorial invariance by sex, age and city of the final proposed model was confirmed. Moral disengagement mechanisms were negatively correlated with empathy and prosocial tendencies. It is concluded that this scale is valid and reliable to assess moral disengagement in Colombian youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people in Colombia present high rates of mental health problems, to which the country’s history of armed internal conflict contributes in complex ways. Mental health services in Colombia are fragmented, inadequate, and difficult to access for many. Young people’s help)seeking is often hindered by mental health stigma and/or poor experiences with services. This paper presents a thematic analysis of qualitative data from a mixed-methods study aimed at developing and testing a mental health intervention for Colombian youths. We draw upon theoretical lenses from scholarly work on stigma and Sen’s ‘capabilities approach’ to inform our analysis of interviews and group discussions with staff and young people involved in the state-funded human capital building programme ‘Jovenes en Acción’ (JeA). By illustrating how study participants talked about stigma, vulnerability, mental health services organisation, and the challenges of discussing mental health topics in a learning environment, we illuminate aspects of mental health support and anti-stigma interventions that might need enhancing. In particular, we suggest that more emphasis on ‘community competencies’ as complementary to and interrelated with individual competencies would strengthen young people’s individual and collective resources for mental wellbeing while being in line with the sociocritical principles of existing human capital-enhancing programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the importance of accurately modeling the operational constraints of Combined-Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGTs) within a unit-commitment framework. In practice, in Colombia, when given an initial dispatch by the Independent System Operator, CCGT plants are operated according to the results of heuristic simulation codes. Such heuristics often omit technical operating constraints, including hot, warm, or cold startup ramps; the minimum operation hours required for a gas turbine to start a steam turbine; the relationship between the dispatched number of steam and gas turbines; the load distribution among gas turbines; and supplementary fires. Most unit-commitment models in the literature represent standard technical constraints like startup, shutdown, up/down ramps, and in some cases, supplementary fires. However, they typically overlook other real-life CCGT operating constraints, which were considered in this work. These constraints are crucial in integrated energy systems to avoid equipment damage, which can potentially put CCGT plants out of service and ultimately lead to lower operating costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to suggest a mathematical model of unpaid housework and empirically test its main predictions using data from Mexico (2014) and Colombia (2017) time-use surveys. The model, based upon the Marxist-feminist approach, suggests that the magnitude of unpaid housework is determined by the super-exploitation of labor, i.e. the gap between wages and the value of labor-power. The outcome is an equation that relates positively the magnitude of unpaid housework with the super-exploitation of labor. The parametric and nonparametric regression estimates applied in both countries show preliminary empirical support for the theoretical model. The theoretical and empirical findings have several implications for Marxist-feminist literature as well as for empirical research on unpaid housework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of formative research conducted from January to June 2020 in the Department of Atlántico, Caribbean region of Colombia, whose findings were used as inputs to design the national strategy for comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) outside school – Tírala Plena – including its curriculum. This is within the framework of the multi-country project coordinated by UNFPA and WHO aimed at generating evidence on the role of facilitators in the delivery of CSE in non-school contexts. The research was carried out in four municipalities in northern Colombia, in rural and marginal urban contexts with conditions of vulnerability for the adolescent population, including a strong presence of migrant populations from Venezuela. A total of 150 male and female adolescents ages 10–17 participated in the formative research. Workshops such as patchwork quilt, body mapping and talking maps were used as methods to gather information. The groups were divided by sex and age (10–13 years old and 14–17 years old). Knowledge, attitudes and social norms regarding adolescent pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, including human immunodeficiency virus, and gender-based violence, were identified in adolescents (schooled and not schooled, but with minimal or no access to CSE). All of the above enabled us to establish a set of recommendations for the strengthening of the CSE strategy Tírala plena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electricity is crucial for daily life due to the number of activities that depend on it. To forecast future electric load, which changes over time and depends on various factors, grid operators (GOs) must create forecasting models for various time horizons with a high degree of accuracy because the results have a huge impact on their decision-making regarding, for example, the scheduling of power units to supply user consumption in the short or long term or the installation of new power plants. This has led to the exploration of multiple techniques like statistical models and Artificial Intelligence (AI), with Machine-Learning and Deep-Learning algorithms being the most popular in this latter field. This paper proposes a neural network-based model to forecast short-term load for a Colombian grid operator, considering a seven-day time horizon and using an LSTM recurrent neural network with historical load values from a region in Colombia and calendar features such as holidays and the current month corresponding to the target week. Unlike other LSTM implementations found in the literature, in this work, the LSTM cells read multiple load measurements at once, and the additional information (holidays and current month) is concatenated to the output of the LSTM. The result is used to feed a fully connected neural network to obtain the desired forecast. Due to social problems in the country, the load data presents a strange behavior, which, in principle, affects the prediction capacity of the model. Still, it is eventually able to adjust its forecasts accordingly. The regression metric MAPE measures the model performance, with the best predicted week having an error of 1.65% and the worst week having an error of 26.22%. Additionally, prediction intervals are estimated using bootstrapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Rickettsiae are obligate intracellular Gram-negative bacteria that are the causative agent of rickettsioses and are spread to vertebrate hosts by arthropods. There are no previous reports of isolation of Rickettsia amblyommatis for Colombia. Methods: A convenience sampling was executed in three departments in Colombia for direct collection of adult ticks on domestic animals or over vegetation. Ticks were screened for the presence of Rickettsia spp. by real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) amplifying the citrate synthase gene (gltA), and the positive sample was processed for isolation and further molecular characterization by conventional PCR. The absolute and relative frequencies were calculated for several tick species variables. All products from conventional PCR were further purified and sequenced by the Sanger technique. Representative sequences of 18 Rickettsia species were downloaded from GenBank. Consensus phylogenetic trees were constructed for the gltA, ompB, ompA, and htrA genes with 1000 replicates, calculating bootstrap values through the maximum likelihood method and the generalized time reversible substitution model in the MEGA 7.0 software program. Results: One female Amblyomma mixtum collected on vegetation was amplified by qPCR (gltA), indicating a frequency of 1.6% (1/61) for Rickettsia spp. infection. Sequence analysis of a rickettsial isolate from this tick in BLASTn showed 100% identity with gltA (340 base pairs [bp]), 99.87% for ompB (782 bp), 98.99% for htrA (497 bp), and 100% for ompA (488 bp) to R. amblyommatis. Concatenated phylogenetic analysis confirmed these findings indicating that the isolate is grouped with other sequences of Amblyomma cajennense complex from Panama and Brazil within the R. amblyommatis clade. Conclusions: This paper describes the isolation and early molecular identification of a R. amblyommatis strain from A. mixtum in Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the results of research conducted with the objective of knowing the perceptions of people in Colombia about the possibility of receiving a universal basic income, which does not exist thus far in the country. The research question was: how do the social perceptions of Colombians about receiving a UBI allow them to understand the possibilities of developing a public policy that guarantees it? A qualitative methodology of grounded theory was applied by conducting 37 in-depth interviews with adults of all socioeconomic levels, all educational levels and productive working age. The information obtained was coded. The resultant main categories with which the Grounded Theory was built were mistrust in others, hope for a better society, unconditional support, and implementation scenario. It was concluded that, if there is an intention to implement the UBI in Colombia, there must be policies that contribute to changing the mistrust and fear of citizens to receive support from the State by solidarity and equity so that UBI can be assume as a right that contributes to the construction of justice and social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the effects of adding solar and wind power to the power system of Colombia's Caribbean region and its connections to the National Interconnected System. A base scenario was simulated in the PowerFactory 2003 software considering the actual data of the power system in 2023, and then, they were compared with the results obtained for 2033, considering the growth of the network and the addition of new power plants based on variable renewable energy. The comparison analyzes the impact of the newly added renewable energy in the power system on the voltage stability and system frequency. The results obtained show that the addition of new variable renewable energy plants generates voltage fluctuations in the lower voltage levels, ranging from 1% to 3.1%, which indicates potential challenges in maintaining the voltage stability. In higher voltages, no significant variations were found. Regarding the system frequency, the transient value tends to increase but is within the regulatory range, with variations of less than 0.2 Hz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: The article aims to analyze child recruitment as a form of human trafficking. Beyond the theoretical perspectives that focus on security or rights, it addresses the topic as a form of unfree labor. By means of a case study focused on child recruitment by right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia, the paper analyzes how children entered and exited illegal armed groups, the functions they performed, and the exploitation they endured. The research argues that child recruitment operates as a large-scale labor-market uptake in the wartime social order, where the “employers” are paramilitary groups, and the labor force, in part, consists of children and adolescents. Methodology: This case study relies on different sources of information: a database on child recruitment provided by the special Justice and Peace Unit of the Colombian Attorney General’s Office (989 cases between 1981 and 2005), sentences of Peace and Justice, testimonials given by victims in judicial processes, and semi-structured interviews with different actors. Conclusions: The paper shows that child recruitment as a form of trafficking is functional to wartime social order in contexts of poverty and inequality. There is demand and supply; thus, both girls and boys, who worked as soldiers, are not only victims but also agents that make decisions in challenging conditions. Therefore, if the socioeconomic options for these children, even after their demobilization from the armed group, are still a choice between bad and worse, joining a violent (no longer “armed” but “criminal”) group will remain a feasible alternative. Originality: The article contributes to the academic literature on a recent topic, such as the overlapping between child recruitment and human trafficking in armed conflict and post-conflict situations. It also contributes to the literature on “unfree labor,” as the study focuses on an actor (illegal armed groups) that has not been analyzed until now. Finally, the research demonstrates the limits of understanding human trafficking (and child recruitment as a form of trafficking) as a problem of security or rights entitlement. It highlights the analytical and political advantages of categories such as “unfree labor” to provide effective solutions for the prevention and reintegration of child soldiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of safety and sexual harassment risk as the pivotal element for the understandings in gender and city debates both in literature and in public policy in Colombia, which derives from understanding women's sexuality as either "kind mothers" or "chaste women" who must protect their sexuality in public spaces. Using ethnographic techniques in Barranquilla and Cali (Colombia), we suggest that the protection of sexuality is tangential to women's concerns when thinking about mobility, public space, and urban dimensions. We argue that putting women's sexuality at the center of public concerns by using space governance techniques helps reproduce a power scheme in which women lose because they are seen as childlike, vulnerable, and requiring protection. We defend the idea that we need to think spatially, but differently: using a legal geographies approach allows a novel tool to imagine refining policy approaches about vulnerable subjectivities in urban spaces. This paper reveals how space operates as a mechanism to produce identities associated with the mobility experiences of its inhabitants and related with class and gender axes. We argue that the emphasis on sexual harassment as the organizing vector of the interventions related to gender and the city reproduces gendered stereotypes of women and men and reinforces and legitimizes the role of the nation-state as patriarchal protector. Further, the emphasis on safety fails to recognize different ways in which women use their sexuality in cities, their agency, and their strategies for negotiating with governance techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports the results of the systematization of the experience named My ideas in three minutes, an activity implemented in the Maternal School course of the Bachelor's Degree in Early Childhood Education at Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga, Colombia. The One minute paper technique was used to encourage students to reflect on their future role as teachers, by composing texts containing the analysis of their experiences and practices. Those documents were collected and analyzed, using Nvivo program, based on the following categories: identity as teachers and conceptual appropriation. However, during the process, some categories emerged, such as, appreciations about the educational system and others related to writing. The conclusions point out the potential of this technique for a reflexive exercise to be carried out in an agile way; besides, it promotes in the students the habit of constantly questioning themselves, making it possible for them to be more self-critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents current findings about the historical use of silver and metallic elements as part of the decorative technique from Colombia known as barniz de Pasto. The results are part of broader ongoing research. The aim is to interpret and assess the introduction of metal as a significant component in the consolidation of the technique. Our research uses well-established imaging techniques (visible light macrophotography; infrared and ultraviolet photography), cross-sections, and elemental mapping from SEM-EDS. The results are compared and interpreted within a holistic framework suggesting the introduction of silver as part of an innovation of the barniz de Pasto technique, either as whole silver leaf sandwiched between layers of mopa-mopa or as "venturine", obtained by kneading, and therefore fragmenting, silver leaf within mopa-mopa layers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electrification of isolated or rural areas brings with it technical, economic, and social challenges that differentiate the operation of these networks compared to the traditional operation of large electrical power systems, such as the dependence of air or river transport on fuel for the supply of generation plants, the absence of individual measurement and the obsolete infrastructure of the distribution networks. Therefore, this paper proposes a hybrid methodology for studying a Colombian case, analyzing the development of programs for rational electricity use and energy efficiency in isolated areas. These first steps are related to the diagnosis of the current conditions of the power network, the identification of actors that can influence the regulation of the electricity service in the area, and the proposal of mechanisms that allow promoting the rational and efficient use of the electricity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of ongoing planetary crises, this paper discusses the ambivalent relationship between large-scale material infrastructure, particularly energy technologies, and environmental justice. Inspired by relational and practice-oriented understandings of infrastructure, it develops a conceptual approach for energy-related environmental justice research, which is exemplarily applied to the emerging issue of green hydrogen, drawing on brief insights from the hydrogen frontrunner countries Colombia and Canada and associated struggles over Indigenous sovereignty. This "infrastructural lens", based on three epistemological shifts – from infrastructure to "infrastructuring", from social imaginaries to "sociotechnical imaginaries" and from human infrastructuring to "planetary infrastructuring" – provides deeper insights into how patterns of justice and injustice are practically infrastructured and what kinds of imaginaries they evoke or are entangled with. Moreover, it makes tangible how practices of infrastructuring can themselves become part of a broader political ontology, that is, of struggles over ways of being and ways of relating to planet Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assembly and break-up of supercontinents have been hot research topics in international earth sciences because they represent a breakthrough in reconstructing the history of continental evolution and deepening the theory of plate tectonics, which is of indispensable importance to the development of earth sciences. With the continuous enrichment of paleomagnetic, paleontological, chronological, and geochemical data in the last two decades, the evolution of the supercontinent from Columbia to Rodinia has gradually gained unified understanding, and the reconstruction of the major plates within the supercontinent has basically been constrained. In contrast, the reconstruction of microplates, such as South China, Tarim, and Kabul, is controversial and has now become a popular topic and frontier area of supercontinent reconstruction. Hainan lies at the southern tip of South China, and a few Proterozoic units are exposed on the island. At present, Hainan is often taken as a part of the Cathaysia Block. However, due to the lack of exposed Mesoproterozoic igneous and supercrustal rocks in Cathaysia, the reconstruction model of the Cathaysia Block and even the South China Craton based solely on Mesoproterozoic units in Hainan are distinct from those based on units in the Yangtze Block and younger Proterozoic units within the Cathaysia Block, which makes the paleoposition of the South China Craton controversial. In this paper, we provide new detrital zircon U–Pb age data for the Baoban Complex, Hainan, together with the available data to comment on the affinities between Hainan and the Yangtze and Cathaysia Blocks in the Proterozoic, and on this basis, we can reconstruct the South China Craton within the Proterozoic supercontinents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development of a deep neural network architecture based on transformer encoder blocks and Time2Vec layers for the prediction of electricity prices several steps ahead (8 h), from a probabilistic approach, to feed future decision-making tools in the context of the widespread use of intra-day DERs and new market perspectives. The proposed model was tested with hourly wholesale electricity price data from Colombia, and the results were compared with different state-of-the-art forecasting baseline-tuned models such as Holt–Winters, XGBoost, Stacked LSTM, and Attention-LSTM. The findings show that the proposed model outperforms these baselines by effectively incorporating nonlinearity and explicitly modeling the underlying data's behavior, all of this under four operating scenarios and different performance metrics. This allows it to handle high-, medium-, and low-variability scenarios while maintaining the accuracy and reliability of its predictions. The proposed framework shows potential for significantly improving the accuracy of electricity price forecasts, which can have significant benefits for making informed decisions in the energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs the concepts of sustainability and habitability to define and measure ecological urbanism in informal settlements founded by people who have been forcibly displaced by violence. The objective is to identify the obstacles in meeting the tenets of ecological urbanism in informal settlements. We offer primary research from La Primavera, an informal settlement founded by internally displaced people in the late 1970s, located in the corregimiento El Hatillo of Barbosa, Antioquia in northwestern Colombia. Primary research includes qualitative and quantitative data gathered through 72 surveys and 45 technical assessments of properties and houses in the settlement. Situated between the Aburrá River and the northbound highway, above a gas pipeline and under an electricity pylon, La Primavera exists in a state of extreme risk, exacerbated by increasing migration which threatens to exceed the carrying capacity of the territory. Moreover, in Article 35 of Law 388 of 1997, the territory was declared a protected or restricted area and earmarked for the development of the regional commuter train, called the Tren de Cercanías, in 2017. The case study highlights the contradictions in the development agenda in Colombia by showing how development projects designed for the economic betterment and environmental conservation of the region negatively impact the quality of life for the most vulnerable inhabitants and expose them to greater environmental, economic, and social risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Rickettsiae are obligate intracellular Gram-negative bacteria that are the causative agent of rickettsioses and are spread to vertebrate hosts by arthropods. There are no previous reports of isolation of Rickettsia amblyommatis for Colombia. Methods: A convenience sampling was executed in three departments in Colombia for direct collection of adult ticks on domestic animals or over vegetation. Ticks were screened for the presence of Rickettsia spp. by real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) amplifying the citrate synthase gene (gltA), and the positive sample was processed for isolation and further molecular characterization by conventional PCR. The absolute and relative frequencies were calculated for several tick species variables. All products from conventional PCR were further purified and sequenced by the Sanger technique. Representative sequences of 18 Rickettsia species were downloaded from GenBank. Consensus phylogenetic trees were constructed for the gltA, ompB, ompA, and htrA genes with 1000 replicates, calculating bootstrap values through the maximum likelihood method and the generalized time reversible substitution model in the MEGA 7.0 software program. Results: One female Amblyomma mixtum collected on vegetation was amplified by qPCR (gltA), indicating a frequency of 1.6% (1/61) for Rickettsia spp. infection. Sequence analysis of a rickettsial isolate from this tick in BLASTn showed 100% identity with gltA (340 base pairs [bp]), 99.87% for ompB (782 bp), 98.99% for htrA (497 bp), and 100% for ompA (488 bp) to R. amblyommatis. Concatenated phylogenetic analysis confirmed these findings indicating that the isolate is grouped with other sequences of Amblyomma cajennense complex from Panama and Brazil within the R. amblyommatis clade. Conclusions: This paper describes the isolation and early molecular identification of a R. amblyommatis strain from A. mixtum in Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How employees react to an organization's ethical/social initiatives has little support in terms of empirical evidence. We examine employee perceptions about organizational social commitment (OSC) and its association with employee well-being (WB). The sample consists of 289 participants of a healthcare organization in Colombia. We use a comprehensive methodology for mining psychological/managerial constructs in R comprising six processes (observe, explore, confirm, explain, predict, and report). We provide information concerning the scales' plausibility, reliability, convergent/discriminant validity, and equity. We contrast the relationship between OSC and WB by using structural equation modelling with bootstrap approaches. We examine the capability of OSC to predict WB by using machine learning methods. We found a positive relationship between the constructs, which shows that OSC is a valuable strategy for contributing to employee objectives from a 'being well together' perspective. The paper stimulates/facilitates future research and teaching-learning initiatives in latent variable analysis using the R language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Quimbaya were a South American native people who inhabited the central region of Colombia, extinct due to the Spanish colonization. However, it was recently discovered that the Kumba-Quimbaya indigenous community, currently living in the village of La Iberia in the municipality of Riosucio, Caldas, is descendant of the ancient Quimbaya culture. This paper describes the implicit astronomical phenomena found in the cultural practices of the ancestral Kumba-Quimbaya people and characterizes the relationship between these practices and the daily activities of this community. This qualitative study relies on three ethnographic techniques to gather information: participant observation, field diaries, and interviews, which were conducted during visits to the community’s rural settlement. The information was systematized in a textual corpus and processed through content analysis. We identified 10 astronomical phenomena embedded within the cultural practices of this community. The phases of the Moon are used to schedule ceremonies and festivities, agricultural activities and within their traditional cuisine. We also identified the ritual use of geography through the observation of the location of the Sun and the Moon with respect to sacred mountains. Likewise, we evidenced the influence of a lunar calendar of their own in current social activities. This work allowed us to describe the relationship between astronomical phenomena and the daily activities of the community, such as rituals to improve their harvests, perform plantings, or anticipate climatic or seasonal changes. These findings contribute to the knowledge of the customs and traditions of the Quimbaya people, as well as broaden our understanding of the use of astronomy by pre-Columbian peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a compendium of good practices detected from the application of the Social Profitability Indicator in Communication IRSCOM to a group of 12 community and indigenous public interest stations in Colombia during the year 2022. The IRSCOM-RADCC (Radio Comunitaria Colombia) is a tested methodology that is specified in 33 indicators and is designed to collect quantitative and qualitative information on the internal functioning of the media in relation to six categories of analysis: management, social capital, territorial and citizen articulation, programming, Internet activity and infrastructure. The information collected goes through a weighting process that results in numerical scores for each of its variables allowing to observe strengths and weaknesses. The tool facilitates the collection of qualitative information in the form of good practices for each of its variables, thanks to the results of the semi-structured interview that accompanies the IRSCOM implementation methodology. The results have shown ingenious ways by radios to self-manage, as well as loyalty participation, both in management and in the realization of programs. There is also a growing interest in diversity and differential aspects in the configuration of social capital and in the programmatic contents as well as a high level of linkage with the social fabric. All this makes them the axis of territorial structuring and enhancement of proximity communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article examines the influence of emotional intelligence on organizational citizenship behavior and transformational and transactional leadership, and the impact of these dimensions on operational effectiveness. Design/Methodology: The analysis was based on 180 valid questionnaires from organizations in Colombia's manufacturing sector of the Valle del Cauca region. The variables were analyzed using structural equation modeling to identify the relationships among the studied constructs. Findings: The results suggest that emotional intelligence positively affects organizational citizenship behavior. Nevertheless, emotional intelligence does not impact transformational leadership and only partially affects transactional leadership and operational effectiveness. Emotional intelligence has a strong and positive impact on operational effectiveness when mediated by organizational citizenship behavior, which does have a strong and positive predictive power on operational effectiveness. Hence, in the search for competitive advantage, leaders should seek to improve operational effectiveness by focusing on developing emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behaviour skills. Interestingly, of the two leadership styles examined in this study, only transactional leadership impacts operational effectiveness, which is inconsistent with the current literature and indicates a need for further leadership training. Originality/Value: The value of this paper lies in discerning the current capabilities and strategies that individuals in an organization must address for proper transactional and transformational leadership. However, before operational effectiveness and a sustainable competitive advantage can be achieved, the role of leaders should be managed through the appropriate application of the concepts of emotional intelligence and organizational leadership behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Improved education on water-related diseases in schools could help to reduce disease burden. This paper presents specific results on knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of a cluster-randomized controlled trial to reduce diarrheal disease and dengue entomological risk factors in rural primary schools in Colombia. The aim was to investigate whether enhanced educational interventions on dengue and diarrheal disease in schools could improve KAP scores related to these diseases in students and teachers in rural primary schools, as well as the students' parents. Methodology/Principal findings: A factorial cluster-randomized controlled trial was carried out in 35 rural primary schools in two municipalities in Cundinamarca, central Colombia. Schools were randomized into four arms: interventions related to diarrheal disease (DIA), dengue (DEN), both (DIADEN), or no interventions (control, CON). Both educational and physical interventions to reduce risk factors of dengue and diarrhea were implemented. Comprehensive teachers' manuals were developed and deployed to guide the learning activities. The intervention was carried out over two school years. The knowledge scores of students receiving dengue interventions (DEN, DIADEN) increased by 1.16 point score (0.75–1.56, p<0.001) and those receiving diarrhea interventions (DIA, DIADEN) increased by 1.15 point score (0.67–1.63, p<0.001). The attitude and practice scores of students receiving the diarrhea interventions increased (Attitudes: 0.41 [0.11–0.71, p = 0.01]; Practices: 0.33 [0.01–0.65, p = 0.042]), but not for those receiving the dengue interventions (p = 0.31 and p = 0.08, respectively). Conclusions/Significance: There were increases in knowledge scores among students, their teachers and their parents for both diseases. However, the attitudes and practices components were not affected to the same extent. The hypothesis that the students would disseminate knowledge acquired from the educational interventions to their parents was confirmed for dengue, but not for diarrhea. Trial registration: ISRCTN40195031 The trial is registered in the Current Controlled Trials under Infections and Infestations category. Author summary: The transmission of both dengue and diarrheal diseases depends on water. For dengue, the mosquitoes that transmit the infection lay their eggs in containers that hold water, and this same water may contain microorganisms that cause diarrheal diseases. Improved education on these diseases in schools could help reduce their burden. In this paper we present the results of an integrated intervention on dengue and diarrhea in terms of knowledge, attitudes and practices of students, teachers and parents in 35 rural primary schools in central Colombia. The schools were randomized into four groups: interventions related to diarrheal disease alone, dengue alone, both, or neither. For two years, both educational and physical interventions to reduce risk factors were implemented. The interventions increased knowledge scores among students, their teachers and their parents for both diseases. However, the attitudes and practices components were not affected to the same extent. There was evidence that students disseminated their new knowledge about dengue to their parents, although this was not the case for diarrhea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to determine the effect that human capital and key competitive drivers such as quality, agility, and cost have on firm performance, whether this effect is related to the firm's outsourcing strategy, and whether the firm size is relevant in explaining such relationships. Design: This study uses structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and large organizations using a custom survey based on a review of the literature and completed by 404 firms in the Valle del Cauca agro-industrial region in Colombia. Findings: Human capital strategies are essential for the effective deployment of operational agility, quality, and cost management strategies, which impact firm performance through effective outsourcing strategies. These relationships, however, do not hold the same across firms of different sizes. Specifically, outsourcing practices are lacking amongst SMEs in the studied region. The study is limited to a specific region, with infrastructure and connectivity limitations that hinder or undermine otherwise potentially valuable third-party logistics strategies. Practical implications: This paper contributes to the theory and practice in supply chain competitiveness by extending current knowledge of the impact of human capital and key competitive drivers on firm performance, highlighting regional specificities that could hinder firms' competitiveness, and by presenting a novel, quantitative methodology seldom used for these topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the scope for upscaling and transnational transfer of participatory landslide risk management strategies for informal settlements in Latin America. Drawing on lessons from transdisciplinary action-research in three neighbourhoods in Medellín, Colombia, and one in São Paulo, Brazil, the paper discusses how bottom-up approaches were developed to co-produce landslide risk management in both Global South cities, in a way that optimises the collaboration between communities and relevant governmental bodies. The analysis focuses on mitigation and 'agreement-seeking', from the perspectives of scale, power and knowledge, which help understand the parallels between co-production of landslide risk management and co-production of urban services. Two key conclusions are that landslide risk management should be built into neighbourhood upgrading and management, and that both community and the state have stronger roles to play in landslide risk management from their respective capacities. The paper also reflects on the role of academia in enabling co-production of landslide risk management through engaging with local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the forecast of the exchange rate between the Colombian peso and the US dollar (hereinafter the dollar) from December 2019 to December 2020, based on a VEC (Vector error correction) model based on the parity hypothesis of weak purchasing power. With this, it's proposed that the exchange rate is adjusted not only to balance the differences in rates between the United States and Colombia, but also to balance a third variable, in this case WTI crude oil price. Caused by that the main source of export earnings for Colombia has its source in oil resources, it was considered valuable to use WTI quotes as a proxy to estimate the likely direction of the exchange rate in the short and medium term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: This paper analyzes factors related to political incentives for public organizations to cease operations. It suggests that political turnover has a negative effect on the duration of these types of entities. However, this effect differs according to the size of the governing coalition. Methodology: Semi-parametric models and Cox regressions are used to estimate the survival of 415 public organizations in Colombia. Conclusions: The data show that a change in the presidential administration allows the new president to reshape the administration according to their interests. Data analysis also indicates that the larger the size of the government coalition, the lower the probability that a public entity will be eliminated. Originality: The article uses an original database containing longitudinal information on public organizations in Colombia for the period 1958 to 2020. This database contains 415 observations on the organizational characteristics of each entity. This paper contributes to the scarce literature on the termination of public organizations in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using estimations by Bresser-Pereira et al. (2021), this paper analyses the misalignment between the real exchange rate and the current account equilibrium exchange rate in Colombia in the last two decades (2000-2020). Evidence suggests that the commodity boom and bust cycle in this period is important to explain (i) the main trend of the misalignment, (ii) the deterioration of the current account in recent years and (iii) the general macroeconomic performance of the Colombian economy. A discussion about macroeconomic development and stability is also provided in the context of the Colombian financial configuration, characterized by a flexible exchange rate regime, central bank independence and inflation targeting. Ideas in this paper are consistent with key elements in the New Developmentalism Theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a methodology for the estimation of the current account equilibrium exchange rate - the exchange rate that guarantees the intertemporal current account equilibrium for a country. Moreover, the methodology is tested throughout appropriate econometric technics (VECM Models) for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, using quarterly data from around 2000 (according to data availability for each country) to 2020. The model includes both long-term structural variables such as terms of trade, goods and service trade as percentage of GDP and GDP per capita as well short term policy variables such as interest rate differential and EMBI plus. Apart from proposing an innovative methodology for estimating the current account equilibrium exchange rate, the paper brings important insights in terms of chronicle and cyclical appreciation (depreciation) of the exchange rate in LA countries. In addition, it shows high correlation between the exchange rate negative (positive) misalignments and the current account deficits (surpluses) in the countries analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe and illustrate Schlegelia longirachis a new species from montane forest remnants (1200--1900 m) in the Western slope of the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia (“Serranía de Las Quinchas” and Virolín county) in the Departments of Boyacá and Santander. A root-climbing liana, the new species is contrasted to S. fuscata, S. monachinoi and S. parviflora, the three most morphologically similar species of Schlegelia. This new species is differentiated from its putative close relatives by vegetative (texture, colour, pubescence and shape in leaves, bracts, bracteoles pedicel, calyx and corolla), inflorescences as well as floral characters (staminode absent). We provide an updated key to 24 known species of Schlegelia. For the identification key, S. fuscata and S. roseiflora are regarded here as different from S. parviflora. S. urbaniana is considered a synonym of S. axillaris, whereas S. fastigiata is separated from S. sulphurea as a recognizable species. Schlegelia has its center of distribution in Colombia, where 17 of the species are known to occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Caribbean is one of the world's most vulnerable regions to the projected impacts of climate change, and changes in coral reef ecosystems have been studied over the last two decades. Lately, new technology-based methods using satellites and unmanned vehicles, among others have emerged as tools to aid the governance of these ecosystems by providing managers with high-quality data for decision-making processes. This paper addresses the development of a Google Earth Engine (GEE)-based application for use in the management processes of shallow coral reef ecosystems, using images acquired with Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) known as drones, at the Old Providence McBean Lagoon National Natural Park; a Marine Protected Area (MPA) located northwest of Old Providence Island, Colombia. Image acquisition and processing, known as drone imagery, is first described for flights performed using an RTK multispectral drone at five different monitoring stations within the MPA. Then, the use of the GEE app is described and illustrated. The user executes four simple steps starting with the selection of the orthomosaics uploaded to GEE and obtaining the reef habitat classification for four categories: coral, macroalgae, sand, and rubble, at any of the five monitoring stations. Results show that these classes can be effectively mapped using different machine-learning (ML) algorithms available inside GEE, helping the manager obtain high-quality information about the reef. This remote-sensing application represents an easy-to-use tool for managers that can be integrated into modern ecosystem monitoring protocols, supporting effective reef governance within a digitized society with more demanding stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims an analysis about the impact of the technology implementation in the justice administration in Colombia from the changes introduced by the fourt industry revolution. although the use of TICs for a better development of justice isn´t a legal mandate, with the emergency derived from COVID-19, it was necessary to use different shock strategies against the possibility of physical contact in the judicial services. The main objective is to determinate the impact caused by the changes presented in the use of technology generated by the COVID-19 in Colombian justice: the application of Information and communication technologies (TICs) to the Law. In this context, it been used an analytical documentary approach by the study of juridical texts, specialized web pages and other documents that allow to go deeper in the subject. As a main conslusion, are evidente new cultural patterns and new autonomous regulations forms of human behavior, juridical traffic, wich are linked to data ownership, intimacy rigths, strategic and politic advantages that may arise from its use among other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the implementation and student learning outcomes of a nationwide professional development program for lower secondary and upper secondary school teachers to integrate computational thinking into the K-12 curriculum. Computational thinking comprises important concepts and skills that all students should develop to take an active role in a global society. However, teaching computational thinking is challenging. There are few teachers with the knowledge and skills to integrate computation into their courses. In this program, the participating teachers implemented a set of lesson plans that included both unplugged activities to scaffold student learning, and 'plugged' activities following a use-modify-create learning progression with the Micro:bit device to practice these skills. The study used a quasi-experimental design to compare students' level of computational thinking between the program participants and a control group. The results suggest a positive effect of the learning activities on student computational thinking knowledge and skills as compared to the control group. This result persists after controlling for school context and student gender. This study provides an explicit approach to implementing these activities in the context of a developing country and assesses their effectiveness in a large-scale study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a decolonial feminist geopolitics of Venezuelan migration to Colombia, with Venezuelans fleeing the socialist Bolivarian Revolution and then facing discrimination and violence upon settling in capitalist Colombia amid its failing peace process context. Conflicts over migration and nationality permeate our global order of sovereign nation-states, both in north-south migrations and across the global south, while the feminisation and racialisation of migrants divides the subaltern class and facilitates capitalist exploitation. However, this paper elucidates migrants’ inter-national solidarities and grassroots peace struggles. Community organisers along the Colombia-Venezuela border – the women’s empowerment organisation Tejedores de Paz and youth leadership foundation Horizonte de Juventud – unite impoverished internally-displaced Colombians and Venezuelan immigrants to create resistance territories against xenophobia, patriarchy, and poverty. Illustrating the utility of the methodology of decolonial feminist geopolitics, I trace the reconfiguration of the spirit of sociopolitical revolution in South America through migrants’ emergent form of feminist non-state socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the political and institutional legacies of rebel governance in a context in which, after the demobilization of the FARC-EP, there was no reconfiguration of the dynamics of presence and violence developed by legal and illegal armed actors. I argue that from the rebel governance built by the insurgency and the local community boards (JALS) there emerged social processes that held, even after the signing of the Peace Agreement, and influenced the way in which local orders were reconstructed following the farc’s exit from the area. The paper presents a case study of San Andrés de Tello—a rural locality in the north of Huila, Colombia, with historic FARC presence--based on ethnographic fieldwork that privileged contact with key informants and concrete observations. This work contributes to the understanding of the legacies of rebel governance and how it is possible to use them to generate participatory processes of state formation that incorporate communal institutions as protagonists in the configuration of community governance in regions with a differentiated presence of the State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, the relationship between objective and subjective measures of metacognition, personality traits of the Big Five (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness) and gender were examined. A convenience sample of 352 university students completed the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory, the Adjectives to Evaluate Personality instrument, and completed 3 domain-specific tests (vocabulary, probabilities, paper folding) along with confidence in performance judgments for each item on these tests. Through a combination of descriptive statistics, zero-order bivariate correlations, simultaneous multiple regression, and a multivariate analysis of covariance, findings indicate that objective and subjective measures of metacognition are weakly related and that subjective measures of metacognition were more strongly related to personality traits. Conscientiousness and openness were the only personality traits that positively predicted metacognition. Gender affected both subjective and objective measures of metacognition, even after controlling for university type (private, public) and perceptions of academic performance (high, low) such that males were more accurate and less biased in their monitoring than females only in mathematical reasoning and they reported higher awareness of their knowledge and regulation of cognition than their female counterparts. Findings support the need to better understand how personality traits and gender affect self-regulated learning skills like metacognition to improve educational practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]