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El desempeño empresarial está determinado por factores estructurales que caracterizan al entorno en el que la organización se desenvuelve, sobre los cuales las firmas no pueden incidir de manera directa, y factores endógenos que responden a la gestión estratégica de la empresa; por lo tanto, sus resultados son explicados por las acciones de la gerencia y sus capacidades. El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo determinar la influencia de las cualidades gerenciales sobre el desempeño empresarial, para lo cual se analizan las empresas pertenecientes a cuatro sectores manufactureros representativos del Ecuador. Se estima un modelo de regresión que explica el desempeño empresarial mediante variables como el género, formación académica, afinidad de la formación y tiempo de permanencia en el cargo de la gerencia. Los resultados indican que el género femenino, la afinidad de la formación académica y la permanencia en el cargo se relacionan positivamente con el desempeño empresarial.

Desde la aparición del brote en China, se ha informado que la neumonía por coronavirus impacta más la mortalidad en pacientes adulto mayores y con comorbilidades, entre la cual está la enfermedad pulmonar obstructiva crónica (EPOC) y el tabaquismo. En Colombia, el primer caso apareció el 6 de marzo de 2020, y el riesgo de contraer la enfermedad en este país es alto. Se reconoce que las personas con EPOC se encuentran entre las más afectadas por COVID-19, y debe tratarse de minimizar el impacto de la infección (1). Aunque no fue tan alta la cantidad de pacientes con EPOC que se infectaron con coronavirus en Wuhan, la mayoría de estos requirió ingresar a unidad de cuidados intensivos (UCI) (2). Durante esta pandemia, la prevención de la nueva neumonía por COVID-19 en pacientes con EPOC se ha convertido en una prioridad para las diferentes asociaciones, concientizando al paciente con EPOC. Estos individuos tienen 6,4 veces más probabilidad de desarrollar una enfermedad grave, y 17,8 veces más probabilidades de necesitar manejo en la unidad de cuidado intensivo que la población general (3).

Resumen Objetivos Conocer la prevalencia de enfermedad renal cronica (ERC) y determinar los factores asociados al deterioro de la funcion renal en poblacion asistida en atencion primaria. Pacientes y metodo Estudio transversal y multicentrico realizado en los pacientes basales del estudio IBERICAN (identificacion de la poblacion espanola de riesgo cardiovascular y renal). Se considero ERC a un filtrado glomerular estimado (FGe) Resultados Se incluyeron 7.895 pacientes (edad media 57,9 ± 14,8 anos; 54,5% mujeres). El 14,4% (IC 95%: 13,6-15,1) presentaba ERC; en hombres un 16,1% (IC 95%: 14,9-17,3) y en mujeres un 12,9% (IC 95%: 11,9-14,0). Se observo un aumento continuo de la prevalencia con la edad (24,8% ≥ 65 anos) y con la agregacion de FRCV. Las variables que mas se asociaron a la probabilidad de padecer ERC fueron hipertrofia ventricular izquierda (OR: 1,95; p Conclusiones Catorce de cada 100 pacientes incluidos en el estudio IBERICAN presenta ERC. La prevalencia de ERC afecta a la cuarta parte de pacientes ≥ 65 anos y aumenta exponencialmente con la agregacion de FRCV.

To assess the role of cervical length when predicting vaginal delivery after a previous cesarean section (CS) in women with low Bishop score following the use of a double-balloon catheter for induction of labor (IOL).A prospective, longitudinal study was conducted at a large teaching hospital in Santiago to recruit pregnant women at term with a previous CS and Bishop score ≤6 for IOL with a double-balloon catheter. The device was maintained for up to 24 h and the patient continued IOL with oxytocin only if the Bishop score was6. Demographic and clinical variables were recorded and compared against vaginal delivery as the primary outcome. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to compare perinatal demographic and clinical variables in women achieving vaginal delivery versus those having a repeat CS.The final cohort included 40 pregnant women. Women achieving vaginal delivery (Cervical length, as determined by transvaginal sonography, proved to be effective in predicting vaginal delivery in women with a previous CS and low Bishop score following the use of a double-balloon catheter for IOL.

Learning innovation is a positive approach on the contemporary higher education international stage. This article stresses the need to devise physical spaces that are also innovative. For that purpose, using a qualitative methodology, we investigated recent trends based on the synergies between certain creative disciplines: architecture, music, and fashion. The comparison was based on compositional features and formative dimension. Using a qualitative methodological comprehensive approach, a set of case studies was analysed. The findings show the usefulness of activating these synergies as effective strategies when enriching educational processes in different ways. Six cases of excellence wherein university physical spaces reached levels of innovation were studied, representing relevant transfers among the three disciplines. The text presents examples that show the educational consequences in the establishment of those synergies, in terms of both composition (music–architecture) and the activation of heritage sites in the city as venues of learning innovation (fashion–architecture). The basic conclusions were based on the fact that the increase in teaching and spatial creativity that emanates from said synergies among the three disciplines can be potentially extrapolated to other areas of knowledge.

During the last decade, a considerable amount of effort has been made to classify variable stars using different machine learning techniques. Typically, light curves are represented as vectors of statistical descriptors or features that are used to train various algorithms. These features demand big computational powers that can last from hours to days, making impossible to create scalable and efficient ways of automatically classifying variable stars. Also, light curves from different surveys cannot be integrated and analyzed together when using features, because of observational differences. For example, having variations in cadence and filters, feature distributions become biased and require expensive data-calibration models. The vast amount of data that will be generated soon make necessary to develop scalable machine learning architectures without expensive integration techniques. Convolutional Neural Networks have shown impressing results in raw image classification and representation within the machine learning literature. In this work, we present a novel Deep Learning model for light curve classification, mainly based on convolutional units. Our architecture receives as input the differences between time and magnitude of light curves. It captures the essential classification patterns regardless of cadence and filter. In addition, we introduce a novel data augmentation schema for unevenly sampled time series. We test our method using three different surveys: OGLE-III; Corot; and VVV, which differ in filters, cadence, and area of the sky. We show that besides the benefit of scalability, our model obtains state of the art levels accuracy in light curve classification benchmarks., Comment: Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

The study of the relevance of energy efficiency attributes on residential choices is usually based on stated preferences, using performance indicators. However, this issue has not been researched in developing countries, where energy certification schemes have a low adoption rate. This article paper uses a methodology based on a Kansei Engineering and Kano Model to identify home buyers&rsquo, energy performance perceptions in three real estate developments in Santiago de Chile. Surprisingly, energy ratings negatively affected the survey respondents&rsquo, willingness to buy. On the other hand, the ratings indicated that the most relevant attribute for influencing the purchasing is the perception of the home as a good investment. This finding contradicts most of the studies on energy certification and shows the relevance given to the profit of purchasing new housing units. Therefore, the analyses suggest that this situation represents a decoupling of consumer perception from both the items measured by energy labels and their contribution to consumer choices.

During the last decade, considerable effort has been made to perform automatic classification of variable stars using machine learning techniques. Traditionally, light curves are represented as a vector of descriptors or features used as input for many algorithms. Some features are computationally expensive, cannot be updated quickly and hence for large datasets such as the LSST cannot be applied. Previous work has been done to develop alternative unsupervised feature extraction algorithms for light curves, but the cost of doing so still remains high. In this work, we propose an end-to-end algorithm that automatically learns the representation of light curves that allows an accurate automatic classification. We study a series of deep learning architectures based on Recurrent Neural Networks and test them in automated classification scenarios. Our method uses minimal data preprocessing, can be updated with a low computational cost for new observations and light curves, and can scale up to massive datasets. We transform each light curve into an input matrix representation whose elements are the differences in time and magnitude, and the outputs are classification probabilities. We test our method in three surveys: OGLE-III, Gaia and WISE. We obtain accuracies of about $95\%$ in the main classes and $75\%$ in the majority of subclasses. We compare our results with the Random Forest classifier and obtain competitive accuracies while being faster and scalable. The analysis shows that the computational complexity of our approach grows up linearly with the light curve size, while the traditional approach cost grows as $N\log{(N)}$., Comment: 15 pages, 17 figures. To be published in MNRAS

Brain networks offers a new insight about connections between function and anatomical regions of human brain. We present results from brain networks built from functional magnetic resonance images during finger tapping paradigm. Pearson voxel-voxel correlation in time and frequency domains were performed for all subjects. Besides this standard framework we have implemented a new approach consisting in filtering the data with respect to the fMRI paradigm (finger tapping) in order to obtain a better understanding of the network involved in the execution of the task. The main topological graph measures have been compared in both cases: Voxel-voxel correlation and voxel-paradigm filtering plus voxel-voxel correlation. With the standard voxel-voxel correlation a clearly free-scale network was obtained. On the other hand, when we prefiltered the paradigm we obtained two different kind of networks: 1) free-scale; 2) random-like. To our best knowledge, this behaviour is reported here for first time for brain networks. We suggest that paradigm signal prefiltering can provide more infomation about the brain networks., CA is supported by MINECO/FEDER, under grant PGC2018-095895-B-I00. Ministerio de Asuntos Económicos y Transformación Digital. https:\\www.mineco.gob.es. SJ is partially supported by MINECO under grant MTM2015- 67396-P. Ministerio de Asuntos Económicos y Transformación Digital. https:\\www.mineco.gob.

This paper describes a machine learning and data science pipeline for structured information extraction from documents, implemented as a suite of open-source tools and extensions to existing tools. It centers around a methodology for extracting procedural information in the form of recipes, stepwise procedures for creating an artifact (in this case synthesizing a nanomaterial), from published scientific literature. From our overall goal of producing recipes from free text, we derive the technical objectives of a system consisting of pipeline stages: document acquisition and filtering, payload extraction, recipe step extraction as a relationship extraction task, recipe assembly, and presentation through an information retrieval interface with question answering (QA) functionality. This system meets computational information and knowledge management (CIKM) requirements of metadata-driven payload extraction, named entity extraction, and relationship extraction from text. Functional contributions described in this paper include semi-supervised machine learning methods for PDF filtering and payload extraction tasks, followed by structured extraction and data transformation tasks beginning with section extraction, recipe steps as information tuples, and finally assembled recipes. Measurable objective criteria for extraction quality include precision and recall of recipe steps, ordering constraints, and QA accuracy, precision, and recall. Results, key novel contributions, and significant open problems derived from this work center around the attribution of these holistic quality measures to specific machine learning and inference stages of the pipeline, each with their performance measures. The desired recipes contain identified preconditions, material inputs, and operations, and constitute the overall output generated by our computational information and knowledge management (CIKM) system., 15th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition Workshops (ICDARW 2019)

Chicken have a considerable impact in South American rural household economy as a source of animal protein (eggs and meat) and a major role in cultural manifestations (e.g. cockfighting, religious ceremonies, folklore). A large number of phenotypes and its heterogeneity are representative to the rusticity of the environments (from arid to tropical rain forest and high altitude) and agricultural systems (highly industrialized to subsistence agriculture). This heterogeneity also represents the successive introduction of domestic chicken into this subcontinent, which some consider predating Columbus arrival to South America. In this study, we have used next-generation sequencing of restriction site associated DNA to scan for genome-wide variation across 145 South American chicken representing local populations from six countries of South America (Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile). After quality control, the genotypes of 122,801 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were used to assess the genomic diversity and interpopulation genetic relationship between those populations and their potential sources. The estimated population genetic diversity displayed the gamefowl has the least diverse population (θπ=0.86; θS=0.70). This population is also the most divergent (FST=0.11) among the South American populations. The allele-sharing analysis and the admixture analysis revealed that the current diversity displayed by these populations resulted from multiple admixture events with a strong influence of the modern commercial egg-layer chicken (ranging between 44 to 79%) . It also revealed an unknown genetic component that is mostly present in the Easter Island population that is also present in local chicken populations from the South American Pacific fringe.

La Depresión Postparto constituye un problema para la salud pública, cuya prevalencia real es aún desconocida. Puede aceptarse que 10 a 20% de las puérperas son afectadas por esta entidad clínica a nivel mundial. La escasa información científica que existe en nuestro país sobre este trastorno, permiten el subdiagnóstico o la confusión con otras patologías. El objetivo del presente estudio es evidenciar la prevalencia real de este trastorno. Mediante la aplicación de escala de Edimburgo para DPP se realiza un estudio analítico, transversal y correlacional con los factores de riesgo para desarrollar la enfermedad. Se encontró una prevalencia del 27 % (50 casos), de un total de 182 puérperas que dieron positivo a la aplicación del test. Se crea la variable “madre soltera”, “adolescencia”, “alteración del estado del ánimo”, “patologías del recién nacido” que no requieren hospitalización, “analfabetismo”, “Violencia intrafamiliar” en las cuales no se obtiene significancia estadística. Las variables “Primigesta” (p=0,000), “Cesárea” (p=0,000), “Enfermedades del puerperio” (p=0,031), “Hospitalización de la puérpera” (p=0,031), “Hospitalización del RN” (p=0,000), ponen en evidencia el aumento del riesgo para DPP. Se concluye que la DPP una problemática muy frecuente que requiere mayor control mediante el uso de medidas óptimas para tamizaje diagnostico, tratamiento y seguimiento. Abstract Postpartum Depression is a problem for public health, whose real prevalence is still unknown. It can be accepted that 10 to 20 % of puerperal women are affected by this clinical entity worldwide. The scarce scientific information that exists in our country about this disorder, allows the underdiagnosis or confusion with other pathologies. The objective of the present study is to show the real prevalence of this disorder. Through the application of the Edinburgh scale for DPP an analytical, cross-sectional and correlational study is carried out with the risk factors to develop the disease. A prevalence of 27 % (50 cases) was found, out of a total of 182 puerperal women who tested positive for the test. The variable “single mother” is created, "adolescence", "Altered mood", "Pathologies of the newborn" that do not require hospitalization, "illiteracy", "family violence" in which no statistical significance is obtained. The variables "Primigesta" (p = 0.000), "Cesarean section" (p = 0.000), "Puerperium diseases" (p = 0.031), "Hospitalization of the Puerperium" (p = 0.031), "Hospitalization of the RN" (p = 0.000), they highlight the increased risk for PPD. It is concluded that PPD is a very frequent problem that requires greater control through the use of optimal measures for diagnostic screening, treatment and follow-up.

The definition of an effective innovation policy is a major challenge in developing countries, a task that has become more complex as increasing attention is being paid in policy issues to inclusive development, raising quite different requirements for what an innovation system should deliver, and how it should therefore be organised. It is argued that foresight is an appropriate instrument to shape innovation systems and support policy-making processes, thus, foresight has attracted interest in developing countries. However, the ability to effectively exploit its results is hampered by the limitations of their governance systems to take into account the complexity in the definition of public policies. In such a context, foresight needs to be more thoroughly integrated into the policy making process to be effective. Attempts to engage excluded indigenous or poor peasant, communities in development plans have also been made and in this context, foresight activities in these communities have been conducted, but the consultations have not been strategic and forward-looking enough to connect to policy-making beyond the specific local settings. In this paper, we propose a novel interconnected multilevel approach containing two elements of policy making to support innovation for inclusive development: a) the close interplay between foresight and policy making, and b) the linking of local community-level to national level foresight. Such an approach is well suited for using foresight to inform and guide policy to frame the national innovation system that can attend both economic and social development goals.

We present a new machine learning and text information extraction approach to detection of cyber threat events in Twitter that are novel (previously non-extant) and developing (marked by significance with respect to similarity with a previously detected event). While some existing approaches to event detection measure novelty and trendiness, typically as independent criteria and occasionally as a holistic measure, this work focuses on detecting both novel and developing events using an unsupervised machine learning approach. Furthermore, our proposed approach enables the ranking of cyber threat events based on an importance score by extracting the tweet terms that are characterized as named entities, keywords, or both. We also impute influence to users in order to assign a weighted score to noun phrases in proportion to user influence and the corresponding event scores for named entities and keywords. To evaluate the performance of our proposed approach, we measure the efficiency and detection error rate for events over a specified time interval, relative to human annotator ground truth., 9 pages, 3 figures, and 5 tables

This article analyses how energy efficiency regulatory frameworks have been developed in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Chile, within a context of developing countries, and it discusses if this context has been able to influence a culture of buildings&rsquo, energy efficiency in consumers. An online survey was applied to consumers who wanted to buy a house, aiming to understand their position regarding sustainability, and the role of the state versus the individual role, among other issues. The aim of the study is to identify consumer&rsquo, s perception of energy efficiency and sustainability to promote a future research agenda in the Latin American context. In general, consumers value sustainability, except when they are presented in opposition to economic growth and social protection. However, it is possible to identify differences between Chile, with an established neoliberal economy, and countries that have economies in transition. Indeed, Argentina and Brazil show differences in terms of the role of the State, or the thermal comfort, which is considered a matter of habits rather than a mere technological problem. For driving more sustainable behaviours, consumers should be engaged in the implementation of these standards, creating a twofold process including homebuyers on one hand and mandatory requirements on the other.

Objective: To compare the cardiac autonomic system at rest and its response to a submaximal aerobic test in children with cerebral palsy (CP) and typically developed (TD) controls. Design: Twenty-five children with CP aged 6-11 and 20 age and gender matched TD controls participated in the study. RR intervals were monitored at rest, while performing the sub-maximal treadmill test, and during the recovery period. The square-root of the mean of successive differences between adjacent RR intervals (RMSSD) was calculated. Results: The median level of the submaximal treadmill test stage was 3 for children with CP (95% CI 0.75-3.25), 16/20 TD children completed all test stages. The Log- Rank statistic (χ2 1=30.4) was highly significant (p

Leukodystrophies are a rare group of genetic disorders that affect white matter of the central and peripheral nervous system. We present a clinical case of X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (X-ALD) in a 9-year old male patient. The patient initially presented with neuropsychiatric symptoms characterized by impulsiveness, hyperactivity, and loss of reading and writing abilities. MRI scan showed a frontal involvement of both cerebral hemispheres. Based on this experience, we recommend that patients with hyperactivity and impulsiveness, and loss of previously acquired abilities such as reading and writing should be thoroughly evaluated to rule out the presence of X-ALD. After making the diagnosis with a complete serum fatty acid profile accompanied by the radiologic findings aforementioned, the patient underwent bone marrow transplant, without a favorable outcome after one year of follow-up.

This paper presents a framework for detection and classification of cyber threat indicators in the Twitter stream. Contrary to the bulk of similar proposals that rely on manually-designed heuristics and keywordbased filtering of tweets, our framework provides a data-driven approach for modeling and classification of tweets that are related to cybersecurity events. We present a cascaded Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture, comprised of a binary classifier for detection of cyber-related tweets, and a multi-class model for the classification of cyber-related tweets into multiple types of cyber threats. Furthermore, we present an open-source dataset of 21000 annotated cyber-related tweets to facilitate the validation and further research in this area.

In most countries, energy efficiency at the residential level has been largely delegated to the dynamics of real-estate markets after setting a minimum level. This regulatory definition is in certain cases supplemented by energy performance certificates, such as in the case of the European Union. This approach is based on the understanding that avoided energy-consumption costs positively affect the willingness to pay for them, thus leading to higher prices capable of offsetting production costs and thereby encouraging developers. The case of the private housing market in Santiago de Chile was selected as a reference for a developing country in which energy performance certificates, although they exist as an instrument, are not required to be applied in property transactions. However, unlike most of the research performed in developed countries, it is difficult to analyse price formation using methods based on observed preferences in areas in which there are few energy-certified buildings. Using the technique of contingent valuation, such as the method based on stated preferences, enables one to overcome this difficulty. This article investigates willingness to pay for improvements in the energy efficiency of buyers for new homes based on a representative investment/operation cost analysis. This approach has been addressed to open the debate on the convenience of modifying the national construction code and rethinking the energy certification scheme as well as an exploratory study to undercover further research lines to support the aforementioned discussion. The results suggests that there is a number of potential home buyers ready to pay for energy efficiency when they are informed on the cost savings associated to structural modifications and the cost of providing such improvements and such willingness to pay is not monolithic across the respondents, but seems to be influenced by the education level plausibly associated to the purchase power.

Background Vitamin D is a steroid hormone with pleiotropic effects on physiological processes. Among others, immune system regulation and their analogues prevent symptom development of autoimmune diseases such as SLE. A previous research in a colombian clinic found a prevalence of hipovitaminosis D of 87% in healthy population, but hypovitaminosis D is higher in SLE patients than healthy controls. Objectives To establish the prevalence of hypovitaminosis D in patients with SLE and relationship with SLEDAI – 2K. Methods A cross sectional study was carried out. 80 medical records with a diagnoses of SLE o CIE-10 M30-M36 were identified and we included patients>18 years of age who meet at least 4 of the 11 criteria to diagnoses of SLE for medical record. The analysis included means, DS and Kruskall Wallis with p-value Results The majority of patients are women (94%), with an average age of 39.9 years, married (41%), with secondary education (56.7%) and different occupations. It was found that the patients with higher activity, had lower vitamin D levels. Additionally, if the patient had lupus nephritis, vitamin D levels decreased even more. Conclusions Patients with active systemic lupus Erythematosus, (SLE) have hypovitaminosis D more frequently and we noticed that patients with renal involvement have the lowest levels of vitamin D, which justifies a later analysis. References [1] American College of Rheumatology. Guidelines for referral and management of systemic lupus erythematosus in adults. Arthritis Rheum. 1999Sep;42(9):1785–96. [2] Simioni J, Heimovski F, Skare T. On lupus, vitamin D and leukopenia. 2016;56(3):206–211. [3] Guzman R.A, Pineros L.G, Theran A, Flechas J, Mejia M. AB0795 Hypovitaminosis D and Calcium Intake of Adult Population in Bogota (DICAVITD). Ann Rheum Dis2016;75:1175–1176. [4] Alele J., et al. Autoimmun Rev2010;9:137–39. [5] Dall, era M., et al. in KelleyF Philadelphia 2017; 1368–89. Disclosure of Interest None declared

To investigate hospitalizations from pneumococcal pneumonia in older adults with specific underlying chronic conditions, evaluating the influence of these conditions in developing pneumonia.Population-based cohort study involving 27,204 individuals ≥ 60 years old in Southern Catalonia, Spain. All cases of hospitalization from pneumococcal pneumonia (bacteremic and nonbacteremic) were collected since 01/12/2008 until 30/11/2011. Cox regression was used to calculate hazards ratio (HR) and estimate the association between baseline conditions and the risk of developing pneumococcal pneumonia.Maximum incidences (per 1000 person-years) appeared among patients with history of prior pneumonia (14.6), nursing home residents (12.8), persons with immunodeficiency/asplenia (7.7) and patients with chronic pulmonary disease (7.6). In multivariable analysis, age (HR: 1.05), nursing home residence (HR: 4.59), history of prior pneumonia (HR: 3.58), stroke (HR: 2.50), chronic heart disease (HR: 1.53), chronic pulmonary disease (HR: 4.09), diabetes mellitus (HR: 1.66), smoking (HR: 1.69) and immunosuppressive medication (HR: 1.87) appeared significantly associated with an increased risk of pneumococcal pneumonia.Our data support that nursing home residence, chronic pulmonary disease and immunocompromising conditions are the underlying conditions most strongly associated with an increasing risk of pneumococcal pneumonia in older adults. This data underline the need for better prevention strategies among these persons.

An epidemiological study was conducted on all cases of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) diagnosed in Tarragona, Spain, between 1 January 2006 and 31 December 2009. A total of 286 IPD cases were observed, which was an overall incidence of 21.2 episodes per 100,000 persons-year (95% CI: 16.6-26.9). Incidence rates were 26.3/100,000 (95% CI: 14.4-44.3) among children, 12.2/100,000 (95% CI: 8.2-17.6) among patients between 15-64 years and 59.6/100,000 (95% CI: 40.0-85.8) in those ≥65 years. Overall lethality rate was 7.3% (none in children, 3.4% among patients 15-64 years, and 14.8% among patients ≥65 years; p

Maria Montes de Oca,1 Carlos Aguirre,2 Maria Victorina Lopez Varela,3 Maria E Laucho-Contreras,1 Alejandro Casas,2 Filip Surmont4 1Service of Pneumology, Hospital Universitario de Caracas, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela; 2Colombian Pneumological Foundation, Bogotá, Colombia; 3Universidad de la República, Facultad de Medicina, Hospital Maciel, Montevideo, Uruguay; 4Medical Affairs, AstraZeneca Latin America, Coral Gables, FL, USA Background: COPD, asthma, and asthma–COPD overlap increase health care resource consumption, predominantly because of hospitalization for exacerbations and also increased visits to general practitioners (GPs) or specialists. Little information is available regarding this in the primary care setting. Objectives: To describe the prevalence and number of GP and specialist visits for any cause or due to exacerbations in patients with COPD, asthma, and asthma–COPD overlap. Methods: COPD was defined as post-bronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 second/forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC) ratio

Objective: The goal of this study was to compare the microbiology of severe exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) requiring admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), in patients with pneumonia compared to those that did not have. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study that included patients with severe COPD exacerbation. We took microbiologic and serologic samples to study the etiology of the exacerbation and chest X-ray to see whether or not it had associated pneumonia. Results: Ninety-one patients were included in the study. 53/91 (58%) had pneumonia. The most prevalent bacteria isolated were H. influenzae (25.3%), Moraxella spp (22%), H. parainfluenza (14.3%), Serratia marcescens (13.2%), mixed flora (9.9%) and methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (9.9%). A statistically significant difference could not be demonstrated between the two groups. We detected 24.2% of bacterial resistance in both groups, the most frequent being AMPc (13 cases). Discussion: Bacterial pneumonia in COPD patients is higher in comparison with patients with acute exacerbation. Even though we did not find a significant difference in the microbiology of the groups with or without pneumonia, there are variables such as past smoking related to having pneumonia. Patients with pneumonia also had higher severity scores. Resumen Objetivo: Comparar la microbiología de las exacerbaciones graves de EPOC (Enfermedad Pulmonar Obstructiva Crónica) que requieren ingreso a la unidad de cuidados intensivos, con y sin neumonía Métodos: se realizó un estudio transversal retrospectivo que incluyó pacientes con exacerbación grave de EPOC que requieren ingreso a la Unidad de Cuidados Intensivos (UCI). Tomamos muestras microbiológicas y serológicas para estudiar la etiología de la exacerbación y radiografía de tórax para ver si tenía o no una neumonía asociada. Seguimos a los pacientes durante su ingreso en la UCI y evaluamos el resultado de la hospitalización. Resultados: se incluyeron 91 pacientes en el estudio. 53/91 ( 58%) tuvieron confirmación de neumonía. Las bacterias más prevalentes aisladas fueron H. influenzae (25.3%), Moraxella spp (22%), H. parainfluenza (14.3%), Serratia marcescens (13.2%), flora mixta (9.9%) y S. aureus meticilino sensible. (9.9% ). No se pudo demostrar una diferencia estadísticamente significativa entre los dos grupos. Detectamos una resistencia bacteriana del 24,2% en ambos grupos, siendo la más frecuente AMPc (13 casos). Discusión: la neumonía bacteriana en pacientes con EPOC es más alta cuando se compara con pacientes con exacerbación aguda. Aunque no encontramos una diferencia significativa en la microbiología de los grupos con o sin neumonía, existen variables como antecedente de cigarrillo asociadas a tener neumonía. Los pacientes con neumonía así mismo tuvieron mayores índices de severidad.

The rise and expansion of organized scientific research has led individuals to become accustomed to an unceasing delivery of new scientific results and technical improvements that resolve even seemingly unsolvable problems. This timely book examines how science-based research and innovation is designed, implemented and applied in developing countries in support of development and poverty alleviation. The expert contributors trace and compare the emergence of national innovation systems (NIS) in four developing countries – Bolivia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Vietnam. Dedicated chapters on each country identify the main structural and organizational problems for improving the relevance and quality of research output for the productive sector, and conclude by offering suggestions on how the process of applying research outputs and innovations in support of development goals can be improved.

Background Acknowledgement of COPD underdiagnosis and misdiagnosis in primary care can contribute to improved disease diagnosis. PUMA is an international primary care study in Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela and Uruguay. Objectives To assess COPD underdiagnosis and misdiagnosis in primary care and identify factors associated with COPD underdiagnosis in this setting. Methods COPD was defined as post-bronchodilator (post-BD) forced expiratory volume in 1 second/ forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC)

In this paper we explore the impact of an inter-classrooms math tournament implemented through internet. The strategy is to increase learning through intra-classroom collaboration generated by inter-classroom competition. Ten fourth grade classes with all their students from eight schools participated. During previous weeks students practiced on-line and played a cloud based board game designed to learn word problems. Afterwards, all students participated on an inter-classroom tournament. They played on-line synchronously during 60 min. The game was played in dyads formed from different schools. The list of each classroom average score was published every 5 min on each student computer. We found an important social facilitation effect: a significant improvement on the performance of male students weak on math, and therefore a reduction on the performance gap between mathematically weak and strong male students. The improvement of female students weak on math was also significant but lower.

This paper summarizes findings of an EERI reconnaissance team and a group of Chilean experts on damage to industrial facilities caused by the 27 February 2010 Offshore Bío-Bío Earthquake and ensuing tsunami. Chile's industry as a whole was severely affected when major industrial plants such as paper mills, wood mills, thermoelectric power plants, and oil and gas refineries were shut down following the earthquake either in response to the damage sustained or to maintain structural and environmental safety. Damage resulted primarily from ground shaking; however, it was exacerbated by the ensuing tsunami in coastal areas. Important industrial sectors, such as the wine industry and fishing, pulp and paper industries, suffered severely. Observed damage was primarily due to inadequate anchorage of equipment, differential movements between adjacent supports of piping and equipment, foundation displacements, and failure of non-structural elements and equipment.

Aims The prevalence of atrial fibrillation (AF) in patients with pacemakers is high, and often passes unnoticed. Our aim was to assess the use of antithrombotic treatment in this group of patients. Methods and results All patients who came to our institution to have their pacemakers checked during the year 2008 were included in this study. The atrial activity was assessed by slowing down the paced frequency if necessary, and by the analysis of atrial electrograms in atrial-based pacemakers. The appropriateness of the antithrombotic treatment was evaluated by a cardiologist. Out of 585 patients, 216 (36.9%) displayed AF at some point during the 5.5-year monitoring period (1.5–11), although only 58 (9.9%) displayed it at the time of the implant. Of these 216, 58% were men, with an average age of 80 years (76–86 years). The pacemaker was implanted in response to an atrioventricular block (AVB) in 46.3% of the cases, sinoatrial node disorder in 24.1% of the cases, and slow AF in 25.9% of the cases. The CHADS2 score was 0 points in 4.2% (9) of the cases, 1 point in 19% (41) of the cases, and ≥ 2 points in 77% (173) of the cases. Despite this, only 58.3% of the cases received anticoagulant treatment. The existence of arrhythmia at the time of implantation [odds ratio (OR) = 4.25; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.72–10.51; P = 0.002] and the implantation of a pacemaker with atrioventricular synchronization (OR = 13.23; 95% CI, 2.89–60.56; P = 0.001) were associated with the use of anticoagulant treatment in those cases with CHADS2>2. Conclusion Atrial fibrillation is common in patients fitted with pacemakers. Despite the high risk of embolism, an underuse of anticoagulant treatment was observed.

Introduccion. La hepatitis A es una enfermedad infectocontagiosa causada por un virus ARN no encapsulado de la familia Picornaviridae y del genero Hepatovirus, que se trasmite por via fecal-oral, bien sea de persona a persona o en epidemias originadas por una fuente comun. Objetivo. Se estimo la seroprevalencia de anticuerpos de tipo IgG contra el virus de la hepatitis A en ninos de 1 a 15 anos, atendidos en un hospital universitario como parte de un estudio cooperativo nacional. Metodos. Se realizo un estudio descriptivo y prospectivo, entre junio y noviembre de 2007. Los niveles de anticuerpos se detectaron mediante un inmunoensayo enzimatico de microparticulas. A cada participante del estudio se le hizo una encuesta de riesgo con las variables objeto del estudio. Resultados. Se estudiaron 422 ninos. La prevalencia global de anticuerpos contra el virus de la hepatitis A fue de 29,1%: 37,1% en el grupo de 5 a 9 anos, 36,1%, en el de 10 a 15 y 13,8%, en el de 1 a 4 anos. La mayor proporcion de prevalencia de anticuerpos se encontro en los ninos de estrato socioeconomico mas bajo: 44,2% para el estrato 1 y 27,9% para el estrato 2. Discusion. En este estudio se encontro una seroprevalencia de anticuerpos para hepatitis A mas baja en menores de 5 anos, lo que puede indicar una transicion del patron epidemiologico hacia un nivel intermedio. La prevalencia fue mayor en los ninos de estratos socioeconomicos bajos, lo que puede estar en relacion con el hacinamiento y las malas practicas de higiene Introduccion. La hepatitis A es una enfermedad infectocontagiosa causada por un virus ARN no encapsulado de la familia Picornaviridae y del genero Hepatovirus, que se trasmite por via fecal-oral, bien sea de persona a persona o en epidemias originadas por una fuente comun. Objetivo. Se estimo la seroprevalencia de anticuerpos de tipo IgG contra el virus de la hepatitis A en ninos de 1 a 15 anos, atendidos en un hospital universitario como parte de un estudio cooperativo nacional. Metodos. Se realizo un estudio descriptivo y prospectivo, entre junio y noviembre de 2007. Los niveles de anticuerpos se detectaron mediante un inmunoensayo enzimatico de microparticulas. A cada participante del estudio se le hizo una encuesta de riesgo con las variables objeto del estudio. Resultados. Se estudiaron 422 ninos. La prevalencia global de anticuerpos contra el virus de la hepatitis A fue de 29,1%: 37,1% en el grupo de 5 a 9 anos, 36,1%, en el de 10 a 15 y 13,8%, en el de 1 a 4 anos. La mayor proporcion de prevalencia de anticuerpos se encontro en los ninos de estrato socioeconomico mas bajo: 44,2% para el estrato 1 y 27,9% para el estrato 2. Discusion. En este estudio se encontro una seroprevalencia de anticuerpos para hepatitis A mas baja en menores de 5 anos, lo que puede indicar una transicion del patron epidemiologico hacia un nivel intermedio. La prevalencia fue mayor en los ninos de estratos socioeconomicos bajos, lo que puede estar en relacion con el hacinamiento y las malas practicas de higiene

Cat scratch disease (CSD) is the most common zoonosis transmitted by household animals. There is limited data on the epidemiology and clinical presentation of this disease in Colombia. The typical presentation includes subacute or chronic lymph node infection following inoculation of Bartonella henselae bacilli through a cat scratch. Cats have a B. henselae seroprevalence as high as 90%. Here, we report the case of a preschool boy from a rural area of Antioquia, Colombia, who presented with chronic lymphadenopathy in the right axilla. Other important infectious etiologies were ruled out, and confirmation was made with the Warthin Starry stain of a lymph node biopsy. We also discuss the most important aspects of the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of the disease.

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) affects over 500,000 people worldwide each year. The disease occurs in the Mediterranean basin, Central and South America and is caused by Leishmania infantum (syn L. chagasi). VL is an endemic disease in Colombia, particularly along the Caribbean coast and the Magdalena River Valley and 90% of VL cases occur in children under the age of five. The first line of treatment is chemotherapy with pentavalent antimonial compounds, including sodium stibogluconate (Pentostam) and meglumine antimoniate (Glucantime). These compounds are the ones most used in Colombia, at a dose of 20 mg/kg/day for 28 days. Nevertheless resistance of L. infantum to pentavalent antimonials is becoming an important problem. No cases of VL resistant to pentavalent antimonial compounds have previously been reported from Colombia. This report describes the two cases of VL resistance to antimonial compounds in a girl and a boy who did not respond to previous treatment with Pentacarinat and Glucantime regimens but were treated successfully with liposomal amphotericin B. Based on our findings, we recommend liposomal amphotericin B as the first line of treatment for VL due to its low toxicity, shorter administration period and the low price obtained by WHO.

Resumen La enfermedad de Kawasaki es una vasculitis sistemica, cuya principal complicacion es la afectacion de las arterias coronarias. El proposito de este estudio retrospectivo fue el de evaluar en 48 pacientes colombianos la tasa y los factores asociados a la afeccion cardiaca. El tiempo promedio desde el primer sintoma hasta el diagnostico fue de 10,5 dias. Las alteraciones cardiacas fueron registradas en 13 (27%) pacientes: 10 con afeccion coronaria y 3 con otro tipo de manifestaciones cardiacas. Cuarenta y un pacientes (85,4%) recibieron inmunoglobulina. La edad del paciente (OR: 0,91, IC 95%: 0,85–0,98, p = 0,01) y el tiempo trascurrido hasta el diagnostico (OR: 1,21, IC 95%: 1,05–1,41, p = 0,01) fueron factores respectivamente influyentes en alteraciones cardiacas y coronarias. La alta tasa de manifestaciones cardiacas es similar a la reportada en otras poblaciones latinoamericanas.

Given that highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has been demonstrated useful to restore immune competence in type-1 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1)-infected subjects, we evaluated the specific antibody response to influenza vaccine in a cohort of HIV-1-infected children on HAART so as to analyze the quality of this immune response in patients under antiretroviral therapy. Sixteen HIV-1-infected children and 10 HIV-1 seronegative controls were immunized with a commercially available trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine containing the strains A/H1N1, A/H3N2, and B. Serum hemagglutinin inhibition (HI) antibody titers were determined for the three viral strains at the time of vaccination and 1 month later. Immunization induced a significantly increased humoral response against the three influenza virus strains in controls, and only against A/H3N2 in HIV-1-infected children. The comparison of post-vaccination HI titers between HIV-1+ patients and HIV-1 negative controls showed significantly higher HI titers against the three strains in controls. In addition, post vaccination protective HI titers (defined as equal to or higher than 1:40) against the strains A/H3N2 and B were observed in a lower proportion of HIV-1+ children than in controls, while a similar proportion of individuals from each group achieved protective HI titers against the A/H1N1 strain. The CD4+ T cell count, CD4/CD8 T cells ratio, and serum viral load were not affected by influenza virus vaccination when pre- vs post-vaccination values were compared. These findings suggest that despite the fact that HAART is efficient in controlling HIV-1 replication and in increasing CD4+ T cell count in HIV-1-infected children, restoration of immune competence and response to cognate antigens remain incomplete, indicating that additional therapeutic strategies are required to achieve a full reconstitution of immune functions. COL0008639 COL0058784 COL0012444

Sustained improvement in student achievement on national standardized tests for low socio economic status (SES) districts is critical for reducing gaps in educational inequality. We report the results of 3 years of implementation of an ICT web-based learning environment in all 11 public schools of a low SES urban district in Chile. This includes 43 fourth grade classes and 1,355 students. This is a Computer Aided Instruction program that promotes whole class collaborative learning with peer support. Effect size on the national standardized fourth grade math test is 0.33, which is three times the national improvement level over the same period and five times the improvement made by a neighboring district with a similar population. On the other hand, the same students did not make any improvements on the national standardized language test. Since each class was taught by the same teacher, only without ICT, we can therefore discount the teacher effect.

In order to allow the owner to change the layout according to need, rack structures must be easy to assemble; therefore, the connecting elements must reflect this need. This paper presents experimental findings for a typical rack connection, tested under static and cyclic loads. The beam-to-column connection studied utilizes hooks fabricated with the beam; the hooks are to be inserted in special slots at the columns, in such a way that they can be easily disconnected when a new corridor or free space is required. The moment–rotation curves obtained show a continuous hardening enabling the connections to reach about half of the beam plastic moment. The failure mode is initiated with yielding of the outermost hooks in a progressive sequence towards the beam neutral axis. Non-linear analyses of the rack structure under different seismic conditions were performed, considering the measured moment–rotation curves. The non-linear calculated displacements were more than twice the displacements predicted with the classical linear analysis.

We have built several networks of inferior olive (IO) model neurons to study the emerging spatio-temporal patterns of neuronal activity. The degree and extent of the electrical coupling, and the presence of stimuli were the main factors considered in the IO networks. The network activity was analyzed using a discrete wavelet transform which provides a quantitative characterization of the spatio-temporal patterns. This study reveals the ability of these networks to generate characteristic spatio-temporal patterns which can be essential for the function of the IO.

s from Twenty Second Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting: CNS*2013. Paris, France. 13-18 July 2013, This work was supported by MINECO TIN2012-30883 and TIN-2010-19607.

Sets of coupled neurons can generate many different patterns in response to modulatory or sensory inputs. The study of how these patterns have been generated from the inputs has been object of great interest in the literature. These studies have been mainly performed by means of computer simulations, based on differential models or phenomenological models. However complete descriptions of the behaviour of sets of coupled neurons are hard to obtain due to the complex behaviour of the dynamics generated even by the simplest neuron models and for the high number of parameters involved. Here we present a study of a three neuron network that appears in models of Central Pattern Generators. The use of a lineal model allows a complete dynamical description of the system, identifying the relevant situations and drawing some conclusions concerning the dynamics of the network.

Although applications of biotechnology have taken a slower pace than initially anticipated, they certainly hold potentials for contributing to the social welfare and economic growth of all nations. Aware of such potentials, the andean countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela) individually and collectively, within their economic integration process, are making efforts to develop this new technology area. At the national level, science and technology policies and strategies are being revamped to create an appropriate environment for the development and application of biotechnology and several projects are under execution. These efforts still need, however, further political support and investment. In 1969 the andean countries established an economic integration agreement (the Cartagena Agreement), which included technology as one of its main concerns. For 22 years conceptual and operational developments have taken place creating joint capabilities in many technology areas, including biotechnology. In the last two years the pace has slowed down and is not accompanying national efforts. This is particularly serious as no country can by itself fully develop biotechnology. In spite of current difficulties the Andean Group is well placed to accelerate the development of biotechnology through the application of existing policies and legislation at communitarian level.

In this paper a detailed description of the MIP project is presented. MIP (Intelligent Process Monitoring) is a Real-Time Expert System that monitors, diagnoses, and generates suggestions in real time about optimization and stability concerning the operation of a petrochemical plant. MIP software architecture is based on the concept of Blackboard. The Blackboard is the central mechanism for information exchange between the modules of the system, being also the only centralized knowledge representation scheme within the system. MIP uses a hierarchical knowledge representation with four levels of abstraction, different knowledge sources being responsible of maintaining each of these levels. MIP is deployed and in current use since March 1991 in an acrylonitrile plant of REPSOL QUIMICA, S.A. at Tarragona (Spain), with a reported success both from the technical and the economical point of view.

OBJECTIVES Household contacts (HHCs) of pulmonary tuberculosis patients are at high risk of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and early disease development. Identification of individuals at risk of tuberculosis disease is a desirable goal for tuberculosis control. Interferon-gamma release assays (IGRAs) using specific M. tuberculosis antigens provide an alternative to tuberculin skin testing (TST) for infection detection. Additionally, the levels of IFNgamma produced in response to these antigens may have prognostic value. We estimated the prevalence of M. tuberculosis infection by IGRA and TST in HHCs and their source population (SP), and assessed whether IFNgamma levels in HHCs correlate with tuberculosis development. METHODS A cohort of 2060 HHCs was followed for 2-3 years after exposure to a tuberculosis case. Besides TST, IFNgamma responses to mycobacterial antigens: CFP, CFP-10, HspX and Ag85A were assessed in 7-days whole blood cultures and compared to 766 individuals from the SP in Medellin, Colombia. Isoniazid prophylaxis was not offered to child contacts because Colombian tuberculosis regulations consider it only in children under 5 years, TST positive without BCG vaccination. RESULTS Using TST 65.9% of HHCs and 42.7% subjects from the SP were positive (OR 2.60, p

In this work we propose the use of the discrete wavelet transform for the detection of multiple encoding rhythms that appear, for example, in spatio-temporal patterns generated by neuronal activity in a set of coupled neurons. The method here presented allows a quantitative characterization of spatio-temporal patterns and is based on the behavior of a compression-like scheme. The wavelet-based method is faster than the two-dimensional spectral methods for finding different rhythms on spatio-temporal patterns, as it has a computational complexity O (width ×height ) for each 2D-frame of the spatio-temporal pattern. The method also provides a easy method for classifying different qualitative behaviors of the patterns.

Santiago, capital de la República de Chile, se sitúa en el valle central del país en los 33º 27’ de latitud sur y 70º 42’ de longitud oeste, presentando un clima templado cálido con una estación seca prolongada de 7 a 8 meses de duración. La temperatura media anual es de 12,2°C y la oscilación térmica es considerable: hay casi 13°C de diferencia en la temperatura media entre el mes más cálido (enero) y el más frío (julio) y la diferencia entre las medias de las temperaturas máximas y mínimas para todos los meses del año fluctúan entre 10 y 16°C. De acuerdo a datos del Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas de Chile (INE), el 37,4% de los permisos de edificación de viviendas nuevas del 2006, declara que el ladrillo es su material predominante de muros, mientras que otro 36,0% está asociado con el hormigón armado. Dada la generalmente nula presencia de aislación térmica en estos sistemas constructivos y su alta inercia térmica de absorción, se podría esperar para Santiago un comportamiento térmico - en términos de confort - más bien desfavorable en invierno y favorable en verano. Sin embargo, estudios recientes presentan un escenario opuesto, dado que un gran porcentaje de usuarios encuestados acusa un alto nivel de sobrecalentamiento en sus viviendas. Esta aparente contradicción podría entenderse desde las limitaciones propias de esta base datos del INE del año 2006, puesto que por ejemplo, no refleja el impacto de la implementación de la 2° etapa de la Reglamentación Térmica nacional. Esta regulación, en vigencia desde enero de 2007, establece valores máximos de transmitancia térmica admisible para los diversos elementos de la envolvente de una vivienda. A partir del valor exigido en muros en Santiago (1,9 W/m2K), los nuevos edificios de departamentos han tenido que necesariamente incorporar al menos 10 mm de aislante térmico en su envolvente vertical, modificando su comportamiento térmico tanto en invierno como en verano.Este artículo propone la simulación del desempeño energético y condiciones de confort térmico para invierno y verano, de edificios de departamentos en Santiago para estratos socioeconómicos medios y medios altos, con el objetivo de establecer los impactos de las soluciones constructivas adoptadas en estos. Estas simulaciones numéricas se realizarán sobre tipologías de productos de vivienda ofertadas en el mercado privado durante el periodo 2006-2007, incorporando su materialidad y los datos de mercado, precios y atributos inmobiliarios, según datos de oferta del Portalinmobiliario.com. Estas tipologías de vivienda se traducirán en nichos, los cuales serán determinados a partir de la generación de grupos homogéneos de viviendas mediante a la técnica de generación de conglomerados, sobre las variables de cada producto inmobiliario. Estos grupos de viviendas se encontrarán en los mismos sub mercados inmobiliarios, evaluándose diferentes combinaciones de atributos asociados a las materialidades. Las simulaciones numéricas del comportamiento térmico en invierno y en verano, se realizan mediante el software de evaluación de desempeño energético TAS, mediante un sistema dinámico que calcula las condiciones de las viviendas en régimen horario, evaluando las condiciones de confort térmico. Se espera probar que las soluciones técnico-arquitectónicas actuales, y su interpretación de la Reglamentación Térmica vigente, generan desfavorables condiciones de confort independiente del nicho de mercado donde estén compitiendo. Estas conclusiones permitirán establecer desafíos y oportunidades para el mercado inmobiliario privado, tanto en términos de tecnología de la construcción, como en el diseño arquitectónico, permitiendo el desarrollo de nuevas propuestas para integrar las exigencias de la Reglamentación Térmica nacional a la realidad del mercado de vivienda privada. Santiago de Chile (33°27’S and 70°42’W), capital city of the country, is placed in the central valley. It has a Mediterranean climate with a long dry season (between 7 and 8 months). Its annual average temperature is 12,2°C, whereas the thermal oscillation is considerable: there is almost 13°C between January and July average temperatures (hottest and coldest months, respectively) and the difference between maximum and minimum temperatures ranges between 10°C and 16°C during all the year. According to the National Statistics Institute, 37.4% and 36.0% of new housing during 2006 were built using mainly brick masonry and concrete in their walls, respectively. In both cases, thermal insulation was not generally considered. On the contrary for the heating period, a favorable thermal performance in summer should be expected (low thermal insulation in combination to high thermal mass). However, some recent studies show the completely opposite scenario, since an important percentage of users declare overheating in their own dwellings. This apparent contradiction could be understood from a database limitation, due to these official data do not reflect the impact of the current thermal regulation, which is in force since January 2007. Notwithstanding the required standards are weak in comparison to the international state-of-art (e.g. 1,9 W/m2K as maximum U-value for walls in Santiago), nowadays apartment buildings in Santiago are including at least 20 mm of thermal insulation in their walls to give compliance to the code. This paper proposes a series of dynamic thermal simulations to apartment buildings in Santiago, with the aim of establish the impact of different constructive solutions by means of thermal behavior, both in winter and summer. These digital models are statistically based on the typologies offered in the private real estate market during both periods 2001-2002 and 2006-2007, according to a database from Portalinmobiliario.com. These were determined using a multivariate analysis of their attributes – producing homogeneous market niches - through the hierarchical clustering technique. These homogeneous niches were identified in the real estate private submarkets, assessing different attributes. Thermal simulations were made using the TAS software, a dynamic-state digital tool. According to the results, the implementation of the thermal regulation – intended mainly to reduce heating consumption – have produced unfavorable comfort conditions in all the studied market niches, in comparison with the business as usual scenario. These conclusions allow establishing challenges and opportunities for the private real estate market, in order to integrate new thermal regulations with the private market reality.

El cáncer de próstata es una patología prevalente que puede ser manejada con distintas modalidades de tratamiento. La prostatectomía radical es una de las más aceptadas y esta ampliamente validada. Se presenta una revisión retrospectiva de 141 pacientes sometidos a prostatectomía radical por nuestro equipo entre año 1997 y el 2003. Las edades de los pacientes fluctuaron entre 47 y 72 años con un promedio de 62,8. El seguimiento máximo fue de 80 meses con un promedio de 43,5 meses. De los pacientes operados, 104 (73%) se encuentran libres de enfermedad hasta la fecha. En 51 pacientes se decidió agregar radioterapia local por elevación del antígeno prostático o evidencia de compromiso de las vesículas seminales, de ellos 32 (62%) no han vuelto a demostrar actividad tumoral. Tomando en consideración que todos los pacientes tenían enfermedad órgano confinada al momento de diagnóstico, los parámetros que más influyeron en el resultado fueron tanto el score de Gleason como el valor preoperatorio del A.P.E. Background: Radical prostatectomy is one of the most accepted treatments for prostate cancer and it is widely validated. Aim: To report the experience with radical prostatectomy. Material and methods: Retrospective revision of 141 radical prostatectomies performed by our team between 1997 and 2003, to patients with disease confined to the prostate. Results: The age of patients ranged from 47 to 72 years. The mean follow up was 43,5 months with a maximum of 80 months. One hundred and four patients (73%) are free of disease. In 51 patients, the treatment was completed with radiotherapy due to elevation of the prostate specific antigen or evidence of seminal vesicle infiltration. Of these, 32 (62%) patients do not have evidence of disease activity up to the moment. A prostate specific antigen of less than 10 ng/ml and a Gleason score of less than 6 were associated with better surgical results. Conclusions: Radical prostatectomy is a good surgical treatment for prostate cancer. Prostate specific antigen and Gleason score were prognostic indicators in these patients

Reducing agricultural water use in arid regions while maintaining or improving economic productivity of the agriculture sector is a major challenge. Controlled environment agriculture (CEA, or, greenhouse agriculture) affords advantages in direct resource use (less land and water required) and productivity (i.e., much higher product yield and quality per unit of resources used) relative to conventional open-field practices. These advantages come at the price of higher operating complexity and costs per acre. The challenge is to implement and apply CEA such that the productivity and resource use advantages will sufficiently outweigh the higher operating costs to provide for overall benefit and viability. This project undertook an investigation of CEA for livestock forage production as a water-saving alternative to open-field forage production in arid regions. Forage production is a large consumer of fresh water in many arid regions of the world, including the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico. With increasing competition among uses (agriculture, municipalities, industry, recreation, ecosystems, etc.) for limited fresh water supplies, agricultural practice alternatives that can potentially maintain or enhance productivity while reducing water use warrant consideration. The project established a pilot forage production greenhouse facility in southern New Mexico based on a relatively modest and passive (nomore » active heating or cooling) system design pioneered in Chihuahua, Mexico. Experimental operations were initiated in August 2004 and carried over into early-FY05 to collect data and make initial assessments of operational and technical system performance, assess forage nutrition content and suitability for livestock, identify areas needing improvement, and make initial assessment of overall feasibility. The effort was supported through the joint leveraging of late-start FY04 LDRD funds and bundled CY2004 project funding from the New Mexico Small Business Technical Assistance program at Sandia. Despite lack of optimization with the project system, initial results show the dramatic water savings potential of hydroponic forage production compared with traditional irrigated open field practice. This project produced forage using only about 4.5% of the water required for equivalent open field production. Improved operation could bring water use to 2% or less. The hydroponic forage production system and process used in this project are labor intensive and not optimized for minimum water usage. Freshly harvested hydroponic forage has high moisture content that dilutes its nutritional value by requiring that livestock consume more of it to get the same nutritional content as conventional forage. In most other aspects the nutritional content compares well on a dry weight equivalent basis with other conventional forage. More work is needed to further explore and quantify the opportunities, limitations, and viability of this technique for broader use. Collection of greenhouse environmental data in this project was uniquely facilitated through the implementation and use of a self-organizing, wirelessly networked, multi-modal sensor system array with remote cell phone data link capability. Applications of wirelessly networked sensing with improved modeling/simulation and other Sandia technologies (e.g., advanced sensing and control, embedded reasoning, modeling and simulation, materials, robotics, etc.) can potentially contribute to significant improvement across a broad range of CEA applications.« less

A four-node network consisting of a negative loop controlling a positive one is studied. It models some of the features of the p53 gene network. Using piecewise linear dynamics with thresholds, the allowed dynamical classes are fully characterized and coded. The biologically relevant situations are identified and conclusions drawn concerning the effectiveness of the p53 network as a tumour inhibitor mechanism., Comment: 20 pages Latex, 12 figures

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46084-5_5, Proceedings of International Conference Madrid, Spain, August 28–30, 2002, Small-World networks are highly clusterized networks with small distances between their nodes. There are some well known biological networks that present this kind of connectivity. On the other hand, the usual models of Small-World networks make use of undirected and unweighted graphs in order to represent the connectivity between the nodes of the network. These kind of graphs cannot model some essential characteristics of neural networks as, for example, the direction or the weight of the synaptic connections. In this paper we analyze different kinds of directed graphs and show that they can also present a Small-World topology when they are shifted from regular to random. Also analytical expressions are given for the cluster coefficient and the characteristic path of these graphs., We thank the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (BFI 2000-015). (RH) was also funded by DE-FG03-96ER14092, (CA) was partially supported by ARO-MURI grant DAA655-98-1-0249 during a four month stay in UCSD. (PP) and (CA) are partially supported by PB98-0850