Women’s Road to Imprisonment: Reflections on Dehumanization

Women in prisons represent a unique and complex population throughout the world. The authors have provided psychiatric consultation, diagnoses and treatment for hundreds of these women over the past three decades in the United States. We have identified five factors that can precipitate a cascade of consequences that result in women coming to prison. Sometimes it is a one-time experience; other times, women repeat offenses, ending up in prisons for longer periods. These factors include 1) being sexually abused and/or prostituted as a child, 2) alcohol abuse, 3) legal and illegal psychoactive substances use and abuse, 4) conspiracy with an intimate partner, and 5) mental disorders. We provide quotes from some of the many women interviewed in prison who have experienced at least one of these precipitant factors. We hope that our reflections offer insights into the complexity of incarceration and the pressing need to address the mental health concerns of these disenfranchised and vulnerable women in our prison systems.Las mujeres en las cárceles representan una población única y compleja en todo el mundo. Los autores han llevado a cabo consultas psiquiátricas, diagnósticos y tratamiento para cientos de estas mujeres en las últimas tres décadas en los Estados Unidos. Hemos identificado cinco factores que pueden precipitar una cascada de causas que llevan a que las mujeres lleguen a prisión. A veces es una experiencia única; otras veces, las mujeres repiten los delitos y terminan en las cárceles por más tiempo. Estos factores incluyen 1) ser abusado sexualmente y/o prostituido de niño, 2) abuso de alcohol, 3) uso y abuso de sustancias psicoactivas legales e ilegales, 4) conspiración con una pareja íntima y 5) trastornos mentales. Proporcionamos citas de algunas de las muchas mujeres en prisión que han experimentado al menos uno de estos factores precipitantes. Esperamos que nuestras reflexiones ofrezcan información sobre la complejidad del encarcelamiento y la necesidad apremiante de abordar preocupaciones de salud mental de estas mujeres privadas de derechos y vulnerables en nuestros sistemas penitenciarios

Design and evaluation of a no-tillage seeder for small scale vegetable production using a two-wheeled tractor in Coahuila, Mexico

Currently used conventional tillage systems for small-scale vegetable production in the region of Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico require a considerable amount of hand labor, energy and materials for all activities. Seedbed preparation can require up to 60% of the total production cost in some systems in Mexico. Further, soil is degraded and eroded due to the system. Conservation tillage may reduce costs and prevent soil degradation, but appropriate tools, such as, no-tillage seeders for small-scale farmers are not available. This papers reports on the design and construction of a prototype of a no-tillage seeder for small-scale conservation tillage using a 2-wheeled tractor. Three main functions received particular attention: opening of the soil, placing seed and/or fertilizer and closing the slot. Because of its vapor conservation and good seedling emergence, tools to create T-shaped slots were chosen, with adapted depth control and closing and covering devices. A systematic design process was applied in order to reach the required decisions. Function diagrams were defined from where morphologic charts guided the selection of the configuration of the seeder. A preliminary evaluation included testing of two furrow opener disc types (notched and fluted), and four crop residue levels, 0, 30, 60 and 100%, with respect to performance of the seeder. An evaluation showed that with low cover amounts a consistent and firm seed cover was obtained, but emergence quality decreased due to insufficient residue cover. The notched disc had a better performance than the fluted disc. The inverted T-shape in the soil was not always sustained due to technical flaws. It was possible to build a prototype under 2000 dollars with basic tools in a local workshop. Further research will focus on the biological performance and improvement of the mechanical components and performance

Modeling Catalytic Destruction of Subsurface Contaminants in Recirculating Wells

Groundwater and soil contamination is a significant problem throughout the nation, with approximately 300,000 to 400,000 sites affected (National Research Council, 1994). Examples of groundwater contaminants of special interest to DoD and AF installations include fuel hydrocarbons, chlorinated hydrocarbons, and nitroaromatic compounds. Traditional remediation technologies, which include pump-and-treat, permeable reactive barriers, and natural attenuation, have numerous drawbacks associated with them. These drawbacks have prompted researchers to look for innovative contamination clean-up methods. The technology investigated in this thesis, reticulating horizontal flow treatment wells (HFTWs) with in-well palladium (Pd) catalyst reactors, offers the potential for destruction of groundwater contaminants commonly found at USAF and DoD installations at less expense, more safely and effectively, and without the need to pump contaminated water to the surface, In this study, a numerical model was used to simulate application of the remediation technology under different site conditions for a number of contaminants of interest. It was found that the HFTW system with in-well Pd catalyst reactors had potential to remediate groundwater contaminants of DoD interest. Based only on this modeling study, however, it was unclear whether the technology could reduce contaminant concentrations enough to meet regulatory standards downgradient of the treatment system. Further experimental study is recommended, both in the laboratory and in the field, to quantify the efficacy of the technology in treating various contaminants of concern

La tribu Insarini (Orthoptera, Tettigoniidae, Phaneropteridae): tercera contribución a la organización supragenérica de los faneropterinos neotropicales

La tribu Insarini se delimita en la presente contribución a solo cuatro géneros: Arethaea, Brachyinsara, Insara y Psilinsara. Asimismo, se proporciona una tabla para separar los géneros actuales, ya que los límites de los mismos no están bien establecidos dentro la tribu. El género Callinsara syn. n. se sinonimiza a Sictuna y se transfiere al grupo Plagiopleurae. Finalmente se discute sobre los límites de las tribus Insarini y Pycnopalpini.The tribe Insarini (Orthoptera, Tettigoniidae, Phaneropteridae): third contribution to the supra–generic organization of neotropical Phaneropterinae The tribe Insarini is delimited in this contribution to four genera: Arethaea, Brachyinsara, Insara and Psilinsara. A table to separate these genera is provided. The generic boundaries are not well delimited in this tribe. The genus Callinsara n. syn. is synonymized under Sictuna, which in in turn is moved to the group Plagiopleurae. The tribal boundaries of Insarini and Pycnopalpini are discussed.La tribu Insarini se delimita en la presente contribución a solo cuatro géneros: Arethaea, Brachyinsara, Insara y Psilinsara. Asimismo, se proporciona una tabla para separar los géneros actuales, ya que los límites de los mismos no están bien establecidos dentro la tribu. El género Callinsara syn. n. se sinonimiza a Sictuna y se transfiere al grupo Plagiopleurae. Finalmente se discute sobre los límites de las tribus Insarini y Pycnopalpini

Compact-bounded topological groups

We will study two subclasses of the class of feebly compact spaces in the class of (para)topological groups, the compact-bounded and weakly compact-bounded spaces, both introduced by J. Angoa, Y. F. Ortiz-Castillo and A. Tamariz-Mascar\'ua in [4]. Also, we will study the $r$-weakly compact-bounded subsets of a topological space $X$.Comment: 18 page

RIDI: Robust IMU Double Integration

This paper proposes a novel data-driven approach for inertial navigation, which learns to estimate trajectories of natural human motions just from an inertial measurement unit (IMU) in every smartphone. The key observation is that human motions are repetitive and consist of a few major modes (e.g., standing, walking, or turning). Our algorithm regresses a velocity vector from the history of linear accelerations and angular velocities, then corrects low-frequency bias in the linear accelerations, which are integrated twice to estimate positions. We have acquired training data with ground-truth motions across multiple human subjects and multiple phone placements (e.g., in a bag or a hand). The qualitatively and quantitatively evaluations have demonstrated that our algorithm has surprisingly shown comparable results to full Visual Inertial navigation. To our knowledge, this paper is the first to integrate sophisticated machine learning techniques with inertial navigation, potentially opening up a new line of research in the domain of data-driven inertial navigation. We will publicly share our code and data to facilitate further research

Past, Present, and Future of Simultaneous Localization And Mapping: Towards the Robust-Perception Age

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM)consists in the concurrent construction of a model of the environment (the map), and the estimation of the state of the robot moving within it. The SLAM community has made astonishing progress over the last 30 years, enabling large-scale real-world applications, and witnessing a steady transition of this technology to industry. We survey the current state of SLAM. We start by presenting what is now the de-facto standard formulation for SLAM. We then review related work, covering a broad set of topics including robustness and scalability in long-term mapping, metric and semantic representations for mapping, theoretical performance guarantees, active SLAM and exploration, and other new frontiers. This paper simultaneously serves as a position paper and tutorial to those who are users of SLAM. By looking at the published research with a critical eye, we delineate open challenges and new research issues, that still deserve careful scientific investigation. The paper also contains the authors' take on two questions that often animate discussions during robotics conferences: Do robots need SLAM? and Is SLAM solved

Sparse 3D Point-cloud Map Upsampling and Noise Removal as a vSLAM Post-processing Step: Experimental Evaluation

The monocular vision-based simultaneous localization and mapping (vSLAM) is one of the most challenging problem in mobile robotics and computer vision. In this work we study the post-processing techniques applied to sparse 3D point-cloud maps, obtained by feature-based vSLAM algorithms. Map post-processing is split into 2 major steps: 1) noise and outlier removal and 2) upsampling. We evaluate different combinations of known algorithms for outlier removing and upsampling on datasets of real indoor and outdoor environments and identify the most promising combination. We further use it to convert a point-cloud map, obtained by the real UAV performing indoor flight to 3D voxel grid (octo-map) potentially suitable for path planning.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, camera-ready version of paper for "The 3rd International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Robotics (ICR 2018)

Yield response of yam (Dioscorea rotundata Poir.) to inoculation with Azotobacter and nitrogen chemical fertilization in the Caribbean region of Colombia

In previous studies, we collected roots and soils associated with yam crops (Dioscorea rotundata Poir.) along the Caribbean region of Colombia from which several strains of Azotobacter chroococcum and Azotobacter vinelandii were identified, which in laboratory and nursery studies showed growth promotion activity in yam. In this research, we obtained from Agrosavia two of these strains (A. chroococcum DBC12, A. vinelandii DBC9) and evaluated their effect on yam yields and tuber quality under field conditions, in combination with four nitrogen levels (0, 50, 75 and 100% of the recommended N fertilization dose). In a first instance, in vitro tests confirmed the N fixation capacity and the NH3 production of both bacterial strains, while under field conditions, the highest yields were obtained from treatments that combined the individual inoculation with strains A. chroococcum DBC12 or A. vinelandii DBC9, with 50% of the recommended N fertilization level. On the other hand, yam tubers were classified according to market quality, and the same treatments induced the production of higher yields of first category or export-type tubers, suggesting that these two bacterial strains were also able to improve tuber quality. From this study it was concluded that A. chroococcum DBC12, A. vinelandii DBC9 strains have the potential for replacing up to 50% of the recommended N fertilization dose and present potential as possible bio-inoculants, which could be an alternative for reducing levels of chemical nitrogen fertilization, thus contributing to a more sustainable and competitive yam culture.En estudios previos, realizamos una colecta de raíces y suelos asociados a cultivos de ñame (Dioscorea rotundata Poir) en la región Caribe de Colombia, de los cuales se lograron aislar e identificar varias cepas de Azotobacter chroococcum y Azotobacter vinelandii, que en estudios de laboratorio y casa de malla mostraron promoción del crecimiento en plantas de ñame. Para la presente investigación, se obtuvieron de AGROSAVIA, dos de estas cepas (A. chroococcum DBC12, A. vinelandii DBC9) y se evaluaron, bajo condiciones de campo, sus efectos sobre los rendimientos y la calidad de los tubérculos de ñame, en combinación con la aplicación de cuatro niveles de fertilización química con nitrógeno (0, 50, 75 and 100% de la dosis recomendada para el cultivo). Por un lado, en una primera prueba realizada bajo condiciones in vitro, se confirmó la capacidad de fijación de N y la producción de NH3 en ambas cepas de bacterias, mientras que, bajo condiciones de campo, los más altos rendimientos se obtuvieron con la combinación de la inoculación individual con las cepas A. chroococcum DBC12 o A. vinelandii DBC9, y el 50% de la dosis recomendada de fertilización con nitrógeno. Por otro lado, la clasificación de los tubérculos de ñame de acuerdo con la calidad para el mercado, indicaron que los mismos tratamientos indujeron la producción de una mayor cantidad de tubérculos de primera categoría o calidad tipo exportación, lo que sugiere que estas dos cepas de bacterias son efectivas para mejorar también los aspectos de calidad de los tubérculos. De estos resultados, se concluye que las cepas A. chroococcum DBC12 y A. vinelandii DBC9 tienen la potencialidad de reemplazar hasta el 50% de la dosis recomendada de fertilización nitrogenada y presentan potencial como posibles bioinoculantes, lo que las convierte en una alternativa para reducir los niveles de fertilización química, contribuyendo así a una agricultura más sostenible y competitiva en el cultivo del ñame.Gerencia de Comunicación Institucional, DG SICyP, INTAFil: Sánchez, D.B. Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria (Agrosavia). Centro de Investigación Turipaná; ColombiaFil: Luna, L.L. Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria (Agrosavia). Centro de Investigación Turipaná; ColombiaFil: Espitia, A.A. Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria (Agrosavia). Centro de Investigación Turipaná; ColombiaFil: Cadena, J. Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria (Agrosavia). Centro de Investigación Turipaná; Colombi