Securitization of narcotraffic in Mexico

The war on drugs has being a major issue for Mexico. In this thesis we follow how narcotraffic became to be an extraordinary threat for Mexico. How some of the presidential administrations have shifted the discourse on drugs in different directions, which have resulted in a variety of outcomes. Mexico first began securitizing narcotraffic as a response to foreign policy, but at the same time distributed responsibilities to drug’ consumer countries. Later on, the government of Mexico declared war against narcotraffic, which altered all the panorama of Mexico. Violence and human rights violations skyrocket in Mexico. On the other hand, the following administration is trying to desecuritize narcotraffic. Drastically removing the words war and narcotraffic from their speeches and instead try to use phrases such as Mexico in peace.M-I

Improved Fourier Mellin Invariant for Robust Rotation Estimation with Omni-cameras

Spectral methods such as the improved Fourier Mellin Invariant (iFMI) transform have proved faster, more robust and accurate than feature based methods on image registration. However, iFMI is restricted to work only when the camera moves in 2D space and has not been applied on omni-cameras images so far. In this work, we extend the iFMI method and apply a motion model to estimate an omni-camera's pose when it moves in 3D space. This is particularly useful in field robotics applications to get a rapid and comprehensive view of unstructured environments, and to estimate robustly the robot pose. In the experiment section, we compared the extended iFMI method against ORB and AKAZE feature based approaches on three datasets showing different type of environments: office, lawn and urban scenery (MPI-omni dataset). The results show that our method boosts the accuracy of the robot pose estimation two to four times with respect to the feature registration techniques, while offering lower processing times. Furthermore, the iFMI approach presents the best performance against motion blur typically present in mobile robotics.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

A Facilitated Prioritization Process: An Application in the Forest Sector in Honduras

This article describes an application of an Extension-oriented facilitated goal prioritization process conduced for national forest sector development in Honduras. The process can be employed in many settings that require stakeholder input. This article describes the consensus ranking of priority actions and generation of most doable actions. The results of this project will be used as an input in national forest-sector strategic planning in Honduras

Combined use of two rapid tests for the conclusive diagnosis of Chagas disease: a systematic scoping review

Objective: The goal of this systematic scoping review is to collect and summarise scientific evidence regarding the validity of two simultaneous immunochromatographic tests for the conclusive diagnosis of Chagas disease. The research was informed by the following review questions: Will the use of two rapid tests be a valid method for the definitive diagnosis of Chagas disease when compared with conventional serological tests? In what type of population has the operation of two rapid tests been tried for the diagnosis of Chagas disease? What are the biomedical and public health advantages of the diagnostic method resulting from the combination of two rapid tests over the conventional serological method? Will it be a cost-benefit strategy for the diagnosis of Chagas with respect to conventional serological tests? Design: Systematic scoping review. Setting: A search of the published and unpublished literature in five databases was carried out, in order to identify, screen and select the studies included in this review. Results: 468 studies were identified, of which 46 were screened with a full-text reading, and finally, three articles were included in the review. All studies were in endemic countries with adult and paediatric populations (n=1133) and, together, they evaluated four different rapid tests. The rapid tests showed good sensitivity (97.4%-100%) and specificity (96.1%-100%) for the diagnosis of Chagas when used in combination and compared with the reference tests. Conclusions: The simultaneous use of at least two immunochromatographic rapid tests is a valid option for the definitive diagnosis of chronic Chagas in endemic rural areas, as long as there are studies that previously evaluate their performance on the areas of implementation. Therefore, this could be an alternative to the current diagnostic standard. However, additional studies are still needed in more countries in order to provide further evidence and to investigate the cost-benefit.S

Tres métodos para el análisis estructural de silos de concreto reforzado

Tesis (Maestría en Ciencias con Especialidad en Ingeniería Estructural) UANLUANLhttp://www.uanl.mx