Las ideas sobre evolución desde los antiguos griegos a Darwin

Este trabajo de revisión analiza las distintas ideas y teorías acerca del origen, desarrollo y  diversidad de los seres vivos desde los inicios del racionalismo y la actividad científica en la antigüedad clásica hasta nuestros tiempos. En esta primera parte se abordan las ideas sobre el origen y evolución de los seres vivos que tuvieron pensadores y filósofos de la antigüedad. Luego se aborda  el movimiento renacentista y el origen de la Modernidad que dieron lugar y entronizaron el heliocentrismo y a la nueva comunión entre física y matemática. El desarrollo de la ciencia moderna, a partir de la astronomía y la física, a la par de la reinvención de la imprenta y del redescubrimiento de América por los europeos no solo permitirá la expansión de estos últimos por todo el orbe sino que abrirá el pensamiento al iluminismo y enciclopedismo de los siglos XVII y  XVIII. La nueva geografía y naturaleza irán brindando información que será organizada y sistematizada gracias al trabajo de una verdadera cohorte de naturalistas y científicos principalmente europeos. Así como del teocentrismo medieval se pasó a un Renacimiento  antropocéntrico, en la Modernidad se producirá primero el cambio de paradigma geocéntrico hacia uno heliocéntrico y posteriormente la exclusión, gracias a las teorías de evolución de Lamarck y Darwin,  de las causas divinas, sobrenaturales y metafísicas en la explicación del origen y diversidad de los seres vivos.

El pensamiento evolucionista de Darwin. Las influencias que recibió y su legado.

El presente artículo analiza las ideas que influenciaron en mayor grado la obra de Charles Darwin en especial su libro On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Las mismas son explicadas  en forma sucinta y enmarcadas en los procesos históricos que las contienen. Se parte de reconocer en los inicios de la modernidad la ruptura que provoco en la historia de la filosofía y la ciencia el pensamiento cartesiano y el empirismo de Bacon. De esas dos simientes se desarrollan posteriormente los dos grandes campos del pensamiento: el idealista y el materialista. En este último destacaron los franceses como Buffon, de La Mettrie, Holbach, Lamarck y Saint-Hilaire. También se reconoce la influencia que tuvo A. Humboldt en la obra de Ch. Lyell que fue determinante, junto a la de T. Malthus,  en la concepción evolucionista de Darwin. Luego se reseñan las ideas principales vertidas en el Origin y como fue la reacción inmediata a las mismas tanto de los biólogos y naturalistas especializados como del público en general. Se explica también en forma somera las condiciones históricas y sociales que permitieron una rápida difusión del darwinismo. Por último se remarcan los aspectos centrales, científicos y filosóficos, del legado de Darwin.

Advances on Practical Applications of Agents and Multiagent Systems

9th International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multiagent Systems, PAAMS 2011, Salamanca,Spain, 6-8 April 2011 (http://www.paams.net/paams2011/) - Proceedings: http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-642-19875-5International audienceno abstrac

Body proportions, general and abdominal obesity in adolescents from Córdoba, Argentina

Se analizó la prevalencia de obesidad general y abdominal (OA) en adolescentes escolares, con diferente proporción corporal, de la ciudad de Córdoba, Argentina. Este es un estudio transversal en el que se incluyeron 614 adolescentes (11-18 años, edad media 13,9±2,1; 51,8% niñas). Se obtuvieron datos de tres establecimientos secundarios públicos de la ciudad de Córdoba durante los años 2007-2014. La proporción corporal se estimó mediante el índice córmico (IC=talla sentado/talla total x 100), y se obtuvieron valores Z estandarizados según sexo y edad, y cuartiles (Q1-4) de estos valores. Los niveles de sobrepeso y obesidad general se calcularon en base al índice de masa corporal [IMC=peso(kg)/talla(m)2], siguiendo las referencias de la Organización Mundial de la Salud, y se obtuvieron valores Z por sexo y edad. La OA se determinó median- te el índice cintura-talla (ICT=perímetro de la cintura/talla); se definió OA cuando ICT≥0,5. En general, se observó que, comparados con individuos con IC menor, aquellos con IC más altos (con piernas relativamente más cortas) presentan valores Z medios mayores de IMC e ICT, junto con una mayor prevalencia de sobrepeso, obesidad general y OA. Este patrón fue estadísticamente significativo en las niñas, mientras que entre los niños también se observó, aunque menos marcadamente y sin alcanzar una significación estadística. Considerando los efectos adversos de la obesidad en la salud inmediata y en el futuro de los adolescentes, los individuos con niveles elevados de IC deberían ser especialmente monitoreados en estudios nutricionales y de crecimiento.We analyzed the prevalence of general and abdominal obesity (AO) in school adolescents with different body proportions, from the city of Córdoba, Argentina. This is a cross-sectional study which included 614 adolescents (11-18 years old, mean age 13,9±2,1, 51.8% girls). Data were obtained from three public high schools of Córdoba during the period 2007-2014. Body proportion was estimated via the sitting-height ratio (SHR=sitting height/total height x 100), obtaining standardized sex- and age-specific Z scores, and quartiles (Q1-4) of these values. Overweight and obesity were calculated from the body mass index (BMI=weight(kg)/height(m)2], and were defined according to the references provided by the World Health Organization, obtaining sex- and age-specific Z scores. AO was determined using the waist-to-height ratio (WHtR=waist circumference / height); AO was established when WHtR≥0.5. In general, it was observed that, compared with individuals with lower SHR, those with higher SHR (with relatively shorter legs) have higher mean BMI and WHtR Z scores, together with a higher prevalence of overweight, general obesity and AO. While this pattern is statistically significant in girls, it is also found in boys, although less markedly and without reaching statistical significance. Considering the adverse effects of obesity on the current and future health of adolescents, individuals with high levels of SHR should be given special attention in nutritional and growth studies.Asociación de Antropología Biológica de la República Argentin

Neural Systems in Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence

This Neurocomputing special issue presents the post-proceedings of the International Conference on Practical Applications on Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (PAAMS 2015) held in Salamanca in June 3th–5th, 2015. PAAMS provides an international forum to present and discuss the latest scientific developments and their effective applications, to assess the impact of the approach, and to facilitate technology transfer. PAAMS started as a local initiative, but has since grown to become the international yearly platform to present, to discuss, and to disseminate the latest developments and the most important outcomes related to real-world applications. It provides a unique opportunity to bring multi-disciplinary experts, academics and practitioners together to exchange their experience in the development and deployment of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. PAAMS intends to bring together researchers and developers from industry and the academic world to report on the latest scientific and technical advances on the application of multi-agent systems, to discuss and debate the major issues, and to showcase the latest systems using agent based technology. It will promote a forum for discussion on how agent-based techniques, methods, and tools help system designers to accomplish the mapping between available agent technology and application needs. Other stakeholders should be rewarded with a better understanding of the potential and challenges of the agent-oriented approach

Thomas: Practical Applications of Agents and Multiagent Systems

This paper presents a brief summary of the contents of the special session on practical applications held in the framework of IWANN 2009. The special session has been supported by the THOMAS (TIN2006-14630-C03-03) project and aims at presenting the results obtained in the project, as well as at exchanging experience with other researchers in this field

Multiagent Architecture for Monitoring the North-Atlantic Carbon Dioxide Exchange Rate

This paper presents an architecture that makes it possible to construct dynamic systems capable of growing in dimension and adapting its knowledge to environmental changes. An architecture must define the components of the system (agents in this case), as well as the way in which those components communicate and interact with each other in order to achieve the system’s goals. The work presented here focuses on the development of an agent-based architecture, based on the use of deliberative agents, that incorporate case based reasoning. The proposed architecture requires an analysis and design methodology that facilitates the building of distributed systems using this technology. The proposal combines elements of existing methodologies such as Gaia and AUML in order to take advantage of their characteristics. Moreover the architecture takes into account the possibility of modelling problems in dynamic environments and therefore the use of autonomous models that evolve over time. To solve this problem the architecture incorporates CBR-agents whose aim is to acquire knowledge and adapt themselves to environmental changes. The architecture has been applied to model for evaluating the interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean, as well as for the planification and optimization of sea routes for vessels. The system has been tested successfully, and the results obtained are presented in this paper

Dynamic Monitoring in PANGEA Platform Using Event-Tracing Mechanisms

The use of distributed multi-agent systems (MAS) have increased in recent years, with the growing potential to handle large volumes of data and coordinate the operations of many organizations. In these systems, each agent independently handles a set of specialized tasks and cooperates to achieve the goals of the system and a high degree of flexibility. Multi-agent systems have become the most effective and widely used form of developing this type of application in which communication among various devices must be both reliable and efficient. One of the problems related to distribute computing is message passing, which is related to the interaction and coordination among intelligent agents. Consequently, a multi-agent architecture must necessarily provide a robust communication platform and control mechanisms. This paper presents the integration of an event-tracing model in an agent platform called PANGEA. Adding this new capability, the platform allows improving the monitoring and analysis of the information that agents can send/receive in order to fulfil their goals more efficiently

Multiagent System For Predicting The Co2 Exchange In The North Atlantic Ocean

This paper presents a multiagent system developed to predict the behaviour of the Atlantic Ocean in relation to the sinks/sources of CO2. The heart of the multiagent system is an intelligent agent capable of automatically making predictions about the flux of CO2 in the North Atlantic ocean. The multiagent system has been tested in simulation conditions and this work presents the preliminary obtained results