A new approach to measure reduction intensity on cores and tools on cobbles: the Volumetric Reconstruction Method

Knowing to what extent lithic cores have been reduced through knapping is an important step toward understanding the technological variability of lithic assemblages and disentangling the formation processes of archaeological assemblages. In addition, it is a good complement to more developed studies of reduction intensity in retouched tools, and can provide information on raw material management or site occupation dynamics. This paper presents a new methodology for estimating the intensity of reduction in cores and tools on cobbles, the Volumetric Reconstruction Method (VRM). This method is based on a correction of the dimensions (length, width, and thickness) of each core from an assemblage. The mean values of thickness and platform thickness of the assemblage’s flakes are used as corrections for the cores’ original dimensions, after its diacritic analysis. Then, based on these new dimensions, the volume or mass of the original blank are reconstructed using the ellipsoid volume formula. The accuracy of this method was experimentally tested, reproducing a variety of possible archaeological scenarios. The experimental results demonstrate a high inferential potential of the VRM, both in estimating the original volume or mass of the original blanks, and in inferring the individual percentage of reduction for each core. The results of random resampling demonstrate the applicability of VRM to non size-biased archaeological contexts.Introduction Methods - The Volumetric Reconstruction Method - Experimental design - Statistical procedures - Resamples Results - Geometric formulas - Reduction strategy and size - Resampling (randomly biased record) - Resampling (size bias) - Measuring the effect of number of generations Discussion and conclusion

Efectos del fotoperíodo, reguladores de crecimiento vegetal y medio de cultivo en el crecimiento in vitro de plántulas de Cyrtochilum loxense (Lindl.) Kraenzl. una orquídea endémica del Ecuador

Cyrtochilum loxense (Lindl.) Kraenzl. is an endemic and seriously endangered orchid species endemic in the Loja Province (Southern Ecuador). The main goals of this research were to analyze how culture media, plant growth regulators and photoperiod affect the growth of C. loxense. Eight month old plants (approximate 1 – 1.5 cm in height) obtained by in vitro germination, were cultivated on MS media or Knudson C; MS with three levels of naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) and 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) (2/0.5; 1/0.5 y 0.5/ 0.5 mg-1L); and three photoperiodic regimes (24/0, 16/8, 8/16 h) on MS with and without plant growth regulators. No significant differences of shoot induction were observed on media with or without plant growth regulators, and all tested photoperiods. The highest growth (1.2 cm) was observed in plantlets cultivated on growth regulator-free media with a 16/8 photoperiod. Also the shoot and root formation was better in this species in absence of plant growth regulators. Probably this response is due to the endogenous hormone levels in the tissues or due to the kind and concentrations of PGRs used were too low to induce positive morphogenetic responses.Cyrtochilum loxense (Lindl.) Kraenzl. es una orquídea endémica y críticamente amenazada, distribuida en la provincia de Loja (Sur del Ecuador). Los objetivos principales de esta investigación fueron analizar la influencia del medio de cultivo, reguladores de crecimiento vegetal y fotoperíodo en el crecimiento de C. loxense. Plantas de ocho meses (altura aproximada de 1 – 1.5 cm.) obtenidas por germinación in vitro, fueron cultivadas en medio MS y Knudson C; medio MS con tres niveles de ácido naftalen acético (ANA) y 6-bencil amino purina (BAP) (2/0.5; 1/0.5 y 0.5/ 0.5 mg-1L); y tres fotoperíodos (24/0, 16/8, 8/16 h) en MS con o sin reguladores de crecimiento vegetal (RCV). No se observaron diferencias significativas en la inducción de brotes en medio con o sin RCV, entre todos los fotoperíodos testados. El tamaño más grande (1.2 cm) se registró en plántulas cultivadas en medio libre de reguladores de crecimiento vegetal, incubadas en un fotoperíodo de 16/8. Además, la mayor brotación y enraizamiento se observó para esta especie en medio libre de reguladores de crecimiento vegetal. Probablemente esta respuesta es debida a los niveles endógenos de hormonas vegetales en el tejido o el nivel de RCV usado fue muy bajo para inducir alguna respuesta morfogénica

Improved photoenergy properties of low-emissivity coatings deposited by sputtering with an ion gun treatment

This work studies the effect of ion treatment on low-emissivity (low-e) coatings deposited by magnetron sputtering. Specifically, we have investigated the application of an ion treatment in the dielectric layer before deposition of a layer of silver. This reduces layer roughness which means the silver layer can be deposited with enhanced characteristics. We have also evaluated the etching rate on the SnOx layer due to the ion treatment on already deposit coatings of equal thicknesses. Subsequently, we studied the effects on the coating's photoenergy properties. For equivalent coatings, we found that those treated with ions were more transparent in the visible region, more reflective, and had a lower emissivity, which are essential requirements for low-e coatings applied in architectural glass

Densidad y tamaño poblacional efectivo del bracilargo en el Noroccidente ecuatoriano

El presente trabajo, se llevó a cabo entre enero y noviembre de 2007 en cinco localidades del noroccidente ecuatoriano ubicadas en las Provincias de Imbabura y Esmeraldas, sumando un total de recorrido de 296,8 km con el propósito de obtener datos sobre densidad poblacional y tamaño mínimo viable del mono araña occidental o bracilargo. Durante 70 días efectivos de campo se realizaron búsquedas diarias de primates a lo largo de 35 transectos distribuidos dentro del área de estudio, donde previamente se obtuvo información de la presencia del bracilargo mediante la aplicación de playback. Se contó con 14 registros de la especie, obteniendo densidades poblacionales entre 0,6 y 16,6 individuos km-2; el tamaño promedio de los subgrupos encontrados ascendió a 3,81 individuos; la frecuencia con la que se puede observar los individuos y/o subgrupos en toda la región en la que fue llevado a cabo este estudio fue de 1,5 individuos km-10 y de 0,5 subgrupos km-10. El tamaño poblacional efectivo estimado fue de 32,7 individuos potencialmente reproductivos, cifra que está por debajo del número mínimo de individuos fértiles suficientes para garantizar la supervivencia a largo plazo de las poblaciones de esta especie en el Ecuador.Palabras Claves.- Densidad poblacional, tamaño poblacional efectivo, Chocó, bosque nublado, Ateles geoffroyi fusciceps

Chiroptera of Junín, with the first record of Vampyrum spectrum (Linnaeus, 1758) for the Province of Imbabura – Ecuador

El presente artículo da a conocer la diversidad quiropterológica de la localidad de Junín en la Provincia de Imbabura, Ecuador. El sitio constituye un remanente boscoso de las formaciones Bosque Siempreverde Montano Bajo y Bosque Montano Nublado por lo que se constituye en una importante zona para la conservación biológica en el noroccidente ecuatoriano. Mediante la ayuda de redes de neblina, colocadas en tres tipos de formaciones boscosas, y un esfuerzo de monitoreo de 108 h, se capturaron treinta y ocho murciélagos agrupados en dos familias, siete géneros y 11 especies. No se encontró diferencias estadísticas en la diversidad y abundancia de quirópteros entre los tipos de bosque estudiados. Myotis riparius fue la especie más ampliamente distribuida y abundante. Se reporta por primera ocasión a Vampyrum spectrum en la provincia de Imbabura, este es el 3er registro para un bosque nublado ecuatoriano a una altitud mayor a 1300 metros. Se discute la importancia en la conservación de quirópteros de los bosques riparios y se amplía el conocimiento de la fauna de murciélagos para la zona el cual estuvo basado anteriormente en evaluaciones ecológicas rápidas.Palabras clave.- Murciélagos, Bosque nublado, Diversidad, Nuevo reporte

Use of rice crops waste for energy production in Ecuador

The purpose of this paper is to assess the feasibility of energy production from rice husk in the Province of Los Ríos, located in Ecuador. The overall aim is to determine the most convenient energy generation technological path, considering the amount of resource available, between direct biomass burning for heat production and electricity (on-grid) production through steam turbine usage, pyrolysis gasification and plasma gasification, together with silica gel recovery from the rice husk ash. The decision is made based on the technology state of the different options, the energy production rate and the financial analysis which has a scope of ±30%. This purpose requires developing a basic process design with output streams forecast, cost estimation and financial analysis for each one of the options analyzed. A survey identifies three zones in the study area where rice resource is concentrated with the potential to develop and install suitable power plants. The pyrolysis gasification technology presents the most promising solution and a scenario including silica gel recovery increases the profitability of potential projects in all cases

CIP-OFIAGRO: estudio de perdidas pos-cosecha en la cadena de la papa en Ecuador.

Peer Revie

Adaptive Cross-lingual Text Classification through In-Context One-Shot Demonstrations

Zero-Shot Cross-lingual Transfer (ZS-XLT) utilizes a model trained in a source language to make predictions in another language, often with a performance loss. To alleviate this, additional improvements can be achieved through subsequent adaptation using examples in the target language. In this paper, we exploit In-Context Tuning (ICT) for One-Shot Cross-lingual transfer in the classification task by introducing In-Context Cross-lingual Transfer (IC-XLT). The novel concept involves training a model to learn from context examples and subsequently adapting it during inference to a target language by prepending a One-Shot context demonstration in that language. Our results show that IC-XLT successfully leverages target-language examples to improve the cross-lingual capabilities of the evaluated mT5 model, outperforming prompt-based models in the Zero and Few-shot scenarios adapted through fine-tuning. Moreover, we show that when source-language data is limited, the fine-tuning framework employed for IC-XLT performs comparably to prompt-based fine-tuning with significantly more training data in the source language.Comment: Accepted to NAACL 202