Rebellion under the Palm Trees: Memory, Agrarian Reform and Labor in the Aguán, Honduras

On December 9, 2009, the Unified Peasant Movement of the Aguán (Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguán; MUCA) occupied over 20,000 hectares of oil palm covered lands in the Aguán region in the Honduran northern coast. This was the latest, and probably most dramatic, chapter in the region\u27s tumultuous recent history. This dissertation explores this history and the process of creation of the Aguán region from the perspective of a set of impoverished peasant families that migrated from different parts of Honduras towards the Aguán from the 1970s onwards, in search of a better present and future. It asks about the processes by which the region went from supposed empty space in the 1960s, to centerpiece of the Honduran agrarian reform in the 1970s and 1980s and the principal location of the country\u27s palm oil industry in the 2000s and site of one of the most intense agrarian conflicts in Latin America at the same time. I argue that by analyzing at the particular history of the palm oil industry in the region, we are able to look at the ways in which agrarian structure and political power come together. Four are the main threads that hold together this argument: 1. The perspective of passive revolution to approach the process of state formation in postcolonial Central America; 2. The tension between labor capture and flight as a way of approaching the topic of agrarian reform, in the midst of different processes of dispossession and struggle; 3. The consolidation on the ground of the global palm oil assemblage and the move to the center of the region\u27s life of oil palm monoculture and; 4. The process of creation of historical narratives in the Aguán, as the tension between individual and collective memories. For each one of these threads, I combine my own ethnographic observations based on eleven months of fieldwork, with different secondary sources and the broader set of theoretical and scholarly work that deals with the topics of primitive accumulation and dispossession, state formation, political ecology and oral history

Boundary layer instability beneath periodic internal solitary waves

We investigated the stability of the bottom boundary layer (BBL) beneath periodic internal solitary waves (ISWs) of depression over a flat bottom through two-dimensional direct numerical simulations. We explored the effects of variation in wave Reynolds number $Re_{ISW}$ and wave period on the nature of the instability, and energy production in the separated BBL. The instability characteristics and rate of vortex shedding of the BBL were strongly dependent on $Re_{ISW}$. The BBL was laminar and convectively unstable at $Re_{ISW}$ 90 and 300, respectively. At $Re_{ISW}=300$, the convective wave packet was periodically amplified by each successive ISW, until vortex-shedding occurred. This implies noise-amplification behavior and suggests that the discrepancies in the critical $Re_{ISW}$, for vortex shedding between lab and different numerical simulations, are due to differences in background seed noise. Instability energy decreased under the front shoulder of the ISW, analogous to flow relaminarization under a favourable pressure gradient. At larger $Re_{ISW}=900$, the BBL was initially convectively unstable, and then the instability tracked with the ISW, characteristic of global instability, regardless of the ISW periodicity. The simulated initial convective instability at both $Re_{ISW}$ 300 and 900 is in agreement with local linear stability analysis which predicts that the instability group speed is always lower than the ISW celerity. Increased free-stream perturbations and larger $Re_{ISW}$ shift the location of vortex shedding (and enhanced bed shear stress) closer to the ISW trough, thereby potentially changing the location of maximum sediment resuspension from the ISW, in agreement with field observations at higher $Re_{ISW}$

Energy-Process Integration of the Gas-Cooled/Water-Cooled Fixed-Bed Reactor Network for Methanol Synthesis

The paper deals with the techno-economical assessment of the gas-cooled/water-cooled fixed-bed reactor network for methanol synthesis. The study is the extension of the first-principles model for the watercooled reactor already proposed in our prior work (Manenti et al., 2013). Here, the optimization is extended to the steam generation and the reactor length ratio. As a result, basing on the integrated optimization of energy and process yield, we propose to significantly revise the common design. The traditional water/gas cooling reactor length ratio could be significantly reduced with consequent simultaneous increase in methanol production and steam generation as well, however preserving safety and operational ranges. The economic benefit deriving from the proposed design for a medium-scale process is estimated in more than 1.7 M€/y

Plan de mejoramiento de la planificacion de la produccion y automatizacion de los requerimientos de materiales para Embonor Talca

172 p.Esta memoria se desarrolla en EMBONOR S.A. uno de los representantes legales de The Coca- Cola Company en Chile ubicada en la ruta 5 sur Km. 247 Talca. La continua necesidad de mejorar el servicio genera la aplicación de nuevas prácticas que desencadenarán en un uso eficiente de los recursos con los cuales se cuenta. Para ello el estudio se enfocará en dos problemáticas claras de la empresa que son el mejoramiento de las actividades involucradas en el proceso de Planificación de la Producción y la creación de un programa que permita la automatización de la programación semanal de la producción y los requerimientos de materiales. De forma de solucionar ambos problemas se planteó que las mejoras que se hicieran a la planificación de la producción estén incorporadas al nuevo programa de automatización de los requerimiento de materiales y planificación de producción, es decir el objetivo principal de esta memoria es “Elaborar una propuesta de mejoramiento de las actividades de producción” y por otro lado el segundo objetivo es “ incorporar las mejoras al sistema de automatización de requerimiento de materiales y planificación de la producción”. La metodología que se siguió para resolver el problema de la planificación de la Producción fue primero establecer un diagnóstico de la situación para así realizar el estudio mismo y determinar cuales son las fortalezas y debilidades del proceso. La realización de un diagrama de pareto permite además una visión más amplia de como pequeñas situaciones desencadenan en el problema principal en que se aboca esta memoria. Luego se realizaron propuestas de mejora en base a los pasos para implementar SMED, cuyo objetivo era realizar un estudio de los tiempos de las actividades que existen en las líneas de producción entre el cambio de un producto a otro, se propuso realizar pequeños lotes de producción para una mayor flexibilidad del sistema, además de cada vez que sea posible, seguir un orden determinado en la producción para disminuir los tiempos de actividades de recambio que demandan una mayo cantidad de recursos. Como resultado de la aplicación de una buena práctica de producción se obtuvo una reducción en el tiempo en un 13,7% de uso de la línea One Way en el mes de mayo lo que permite una mayor flexibilidad en los tiempos de producción. Como propuesta de mejoramiento se propuso cambiar el método de proyección de producción que pudiera anticipar la estacionalidad de demanda y también la aplicación del programa que permitirá la normalización y estandarización de los procesos de programación de la producción. Por otro lado se planteó una nueva estrategia de producción, para optimizar los recursos y poder responder de mejor forma al cumplimiento del plan original de producción al contar con stock suficiente que permite suavizar los niveles de demanda traducidos en niveles de producción. Para el desarrollo del programa de producción y MRP debe ir de la mano con objetivos de la empresa y para ello también se realizó un diagnóstico que permitió establecer las herramientas para desarrollar el mecanismo y aplicar la teoría adecuada para el diseño del mismo. Por medio de la programación en Visual Basic para Excel se realizaron las interfaces y aplicaciones de restricciones que se basaron en las recomendaciones que surgieron del mejoramiento de la planificación de producción. De forma que las recomendaciones dadas para el mejoramiento de la producción estén aplicadas al programa de producción y MRP hecho en Excel mediante Visual Basic./ ABSTRACT: The proyect is developed in EMBONOR S.A. Talca one of the legal representatives of The Coca- Cola Company in Chile located on Route 5 Sur km 247 Talca. The continuing need to improve the service generates the implementation of new practices that trigger in an efficient use of resources with which to account. For this reason, the study focuses on two clear issues of the company are the improvement of the activities involved in the process of Production Planning and the creation of a program that allows the automation of the weekly schedule of production and the requirements of materials. Way to solve both problems were raised that improvements be made to the planning of the production are incorporated into the new automation program of the requirement for materials and production planning, that is the main objective of this report is to "develop a proposal improvement of production activities "and on the other side the second goal is “incorporate improvements to the system automation requirement for materials and production planning ". The methodology to be followed to resolve the problem of planning the production was the first to establish a diagnosis of the situation and to conduct the study itself and determine what strengths and weaknesses of the process. The realization of a Pareto chart also allows a wider view of situations as a small trigger in the main problem which this addresses memory. Then they made suggestions for improvement based on the steps to implement SMED, whose goal was to conduct a study of the times of activities in existing production lines between the change from one product to another, it was proposed to make small batches of production for greater flexibility of the system, plus whenever possible, follow a certain order to reduce production in times of activities that require a spare amount of resources in May. As a result of the implementation of good practice in production led to a reduction in time at a 13.7% usage of the One Way line in May which allows greater flexibility in the timing of production. As proposed improvement will be proposed to change the method of projection of production that could anticipate the seasonality of demand and also the implementation of the program that will allow the normalization and standardization of programming processes of production. On the other hand was raised a new production strategy to optimize resources and better able to respond to the fulfillment of the original plan for production to have enough stock that allows to levels of softening demand translated into production levels. For program development and production MRP must go hand in hand with business objectives and we also made a diagnosis that helped establish the tools to develop the mechanism and apply the theory suitable for the design. By programming in Visual Basic for Excel were made interfaces and applications of restrictions that were based on the recommendations that emerged from the improved planning of production. So the recommendations given to the improvement of production are applied to the production schedule and MRP done in Excel using Visual Basic

Probable zoonotic aortitis due to group C streptococcal infection

Human infections due to group C streptococcus (SGC) are unusual. Among them, vascular compromise, especially aortic involvement, is extremely rare. A case of microbial aortitis with aneurysm formation, likely secondary to a SGC soft tissue infection, in a 61-year-old patient who was caring for a purulent leg wound of his horse, is presented. He was successfully treated with antibiotics and in situ aortic replacement with a prosthetic graft and an omental wrap. He remains well almost 2 years after surgical intervention. Aortic infection caused by SGC is a rare condition that can be successfully treated with in situ prosthetic graft replacement

Evaluation of BioCreAtIvE assessment of task 2

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Molecular Biology accumulated substantial amounts of data concerning functions of genes and proteins. Information relating to functional descriptions is generally extracted manually from textual data and stored in biological databases to build up annotations for large collections of gene products. Those annotation databases are crucial for the interpretation of large scale analysis approaches using bioinformatics or experimental techniques. Due to the growing accumulation of functional descriptions in biomedical literature the need for text mining tools to facilitate the extraction of such annotations is urgent. In order to make text mining tools useable in real world scenarios, for instance to assist database curators during annotation of protein function, comparisons and evaluations of different approaches on full text articles are needed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The Critical Assessment for Information Extraction in Biology (BioCreAtIvE) contest consists of a community wide competition aiming to evaluate different strategies for text mining tools, as applied to biomedical literature. We report on task two which addressed the automatic extraction and assignment of Gene Ontology (GO) annotations of human proteins, using full text articles. The predictions of task 2 are based on triplets of <it>protein – GO term – article passage</it>. The annotation-relevant text passages were returned by the participants and evaluated by expert curators of the GO annotation (GOA) team at the European Institute of Bioinformatics (EBI). Each participant could submit up to three results for each sub-task comprising task 2. In total more than 15,000 individual results were provided by the participants. The curators evaluated in addition to the annotation itself, whether the protein and the GO term were correctly predicted and traceable through the submitted text fragment.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Concepts provided by GO are currently the most extended set of terms used for annotating gene products, thus they were explored to assess how effectively text mining tools are able to extract those annotations automatically. Although the obtained results are promising, they are still far from reaching the required performance demanded by real world applications. Among the principal difficulties encountered to address the proposed task, were the complex nature of the GO terms and protein names (the large range of variants which are used to express proteins and especially GO terms in free text), and the lack of a standard training set. A range of very different strategies were used to tackle this task. The dataset generated in line with the BioCreative challenge is publicly available and will allow new possibilities for training information extraction methods in the domain of molecular biology.</p

Nivel de satisfacción del cliente de mediterránea Catering, ubicado en el Instituto Nacional de Salud del Niño, 2019

El presente trabajo lleva por título “Nivel de sat isfacción del cliente de Mediterránea Catering, ubicado en el Inst ituto Nacional de Salud del Niño, 2019 “, tiene como objet ivo determinar cuál es el nivel de satisfacción del cliente de Mediterránea catering. La metodología que se utilizó es de enfoque cuantitativo de tipo descriptivo y su diseño no experimental, además se realizó la técnica la encuesta y como instrumento el cuestionario donde se encuestó a una muestra de 92 clientes que reciben el servicio diario de alimentación en el Instituto Nacional de Salud del Niño, dándonos a conocer la satisfacción de la calidad de servicio que ofrece Mediterránea catering. Se concluyó que el nivel de satisfacción se encuentra en un nivel medio, porque clientes se sienten satisfechos con su tangibilidad, la fiabilidad que ofrecen los trabajadores con los clientes, la capacidad de respuesta de sus colaboradores, la seguridad brindada a sus clientes y la empatía que muestran los empleados, pero todavía no es totalmente satisfactorio debido a que aún no ha logrado superar o sorprender a sus clientes. Finalmente se recomienda a la Gerencia General de Mediterránea catering reducir la mala calidad, refiriéndome a los elementos tangibles, ya que no son del todo moderno y no logra por satisfacer al cliente en todo sentido