Journal Staff

An area of Artificial Intelligence, used for instance in optimization, is evolutionary algorithms. By using mechanisms similar to those that cause evolution, evolutionary algorithms can improve e.g. problem solving algorithms by artificial evolution.The purpose of this study was to show that it’s possible to simulate evolution by modelling it as an evolutionary algorithm. This was achieved by simulating the evolution of silverfish’ genes in two environments with the only difference of the presence of a threat. The results were considered to be successful as the majorityof the genes which were presumed to be important for survival changed in such away. The results could be repeated between simulations indicating that random change of the genes and deterministic factors in the environment shaped the genes of the silverfish and that after simulation the silverfish were optimally fit for the environment.Ett område inom Artificiell Intelligens som bl a används för optimering är evolutionära algoritmer. Genom att använda mekanismer liknande de som orsakar evolution så kan t ex algoritmer förbättras genom artificiell evolution. Syftet med den här studien var att visa att det är möjligt att simulera evolutionen genom att modellera den som en evolutionär algoritm. Detta gjordes genom att simulera evolutionen av silverfiskars gener i två miljöer vars enda skillnad var en förekomst av ett hot. Resultaten ansågs vara lyckade då merparten av de gener som förmodades vara viktiga för överlevnad förändrades på ett sådant sätt. Resultaten kunde upprepas mellan simuleringar vilket indikerar att genom stokastisk förändring av gener och deterministiska faktorer i miljön så optimerades silverfiskarnas gener för att göra det möjligt att överleva i respektive miljö

Agro-meteorological risks to maize production in Tanzania: sensitivity of an adapted water requirements satisfaction index (WRSI) model to rainfall

The water requirements satisfaction index (WRSI) – a simplified crop water stress model – is widely used in drought and famine early warning systems, as well as in agro-meteorological risk management instruments such as crop insurance. We developed an adapted WRSI model, as introduced here, to characterise the impact of using different rainfall input datasets, ARC2, CHIRPS, and TAMSAT, on key WRSI model parameters and outputs. Results from our analyses indicate that CHIRPS best captures seasonal rainfall characteristics such as season onset and duration, which are critical for the WRSI model. Additionally, we consider planting scenarios for short-, medium-, and long-growing cycle maize and compare simulated WRSI and model outputs against reported yield at the national level for maize-growing areas in Tan- zania. We find that over half of the variability in yield is explained by water stress when the CHIRPS dataset is used in the WRSI model (R2 = 0.52- 0.61 for maize varieties of 120-160 days growing length). Overall, CHIRPS and TAMSAT show highest skill (R2 = 0.46-0.55 and 0.44-0.58, respectively) in capturing country-level crop yield losses related to seasonal soil moisture deficit, which is critical for drought early warning and agro-meteorological risk applications

ViTs for SITS: Vision Transformers for Satellite Image Time Series

In this paper we introduce the Temporo-Spatial Vision Transformer (TSViT), a fully-attentional model for general Satellite Image Time Series (SITS) processing based on the Vision Transformer (ViT). TSViT splits a SITS record into non-overlapping patches in space and time which are tokenized and subsequently processed by a factorized temporo-spatial encoder. We argue, that in contrast to natural images, a temporal-then-spatial factorization is more intuitive for SITS processing and present experimental evidence for this claim. Additionally, we enhance the model's discriminative power by introducing two novel mechanisms for acquisition-time-specific temporal positional encodings and multiple learnable class tokens. The effect of all novel design choices is evaluated through an extensive ablation study. Our proposed architecture achieves state-of-the-art performance, surpassing previous approaches by a significant margin in three publicly available SITS semantic segmentation and classification datasets. All model, training and evaluation codes are made publicly available to facilitate further research.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 2 table

Desarrollo de una silla automática para terapia de extremidades superiores para pacientes de la fundación "Ayudemos a vivir"

La fundación Ayudemos a Vivir se dedica a brindar servicio médico y de rehabilitación dedicado a niños, jóvenes y adultos de la ciudad de Quito, las cuales padecen de discapacidades mentales. La fundación brinda servicio de calidad, autogestión y de alta tecnología, por lo cual el proyecto técnico tiene como objetivo principal el diseño e implementación de un prototipo de una silla para la ejercitación muscular de las extremidades superiores, en las cuales se pueda parametrizar y ejecutar terapias en la fundación a diferentes pacientes de los 23 existentes en la fundación actualmente. El prototipo tiene partes relacionadas a la mecánica, electrónica y de seguridad. Consta de una estructura resistente y de durabilidad siendo acoplada a la parte electrónica mediante sistema eléctrico para el trabajo de dos servomotores digitales, los cuales están calibrados a trabajar a varios ángulos de acuerdo a la necesidad del paciente, tal como se tiene configuración del número de repeticiones el sistema cuenta con una interfaz hombre-máquina (HMI) para que el fisioterapeuta realice las configuraciones necesarias de acuerdo a su mismo criterio para la terapia designada de cada paciente. Se tiene programado en el HMI la identificación para cada paciente, así como los datos que se ingresaran para la flexo-extensión. La silla cuenta con un sistema de seguridad mediante un paro de emergencia y sensores de corriente para evitar lesiones en los pacientes y garantizar en alguna emergencia su evacuación inmediata. Se tiene adaptada correas para la seguridad y fijación del paciente para culminar cada terapia y que el paciente no se sienta incómodo.The Help Let's Live Foundation is dedicated to providing medical and rehabilitation services dedicated to children, youth and adults in the city of Quito, who suffer from mental disabilities. The foundation provides quality service, self-management and high technology, so the technical project has as its main objective the design and implementation of a prototype chair for the muscular exercise of the upper extremities, in which you can parameterize and execute therapies in the foundation to different patients of the 23 patients currently affected in the foundation. The prototype has parts related to mechanics, electronics and security. Constant of a resistant structure and durability being coupled to the electronic part by means of an electrical system for the work of two digital servomotors, which are calibrated to work in several angles according to the need of the patient, as there is configuration of the number of The system has a man-machine interface (HMI) for the physiotherapist to make the necessary settings according to the same criteria for the designated therapy of each patient. The identification for each patient is programmed in the HMI, as well as the data that is entered for the flexo-extension. The chair has a safety system through emergency stop and current sensors to prevent injuries to patients and detected in an emergency immediate evacuation. It has adapted straps for the safety and fixation of the patient to complete each therapy and that the patient does not feel uncomfortable

Análisis de la competitividad de las exportaciones de café en el Perú

Coffee is the most consumed product in the world, including European countries. In this sense, the main objective of this article was to analyse the competitive evolution of Peruvian coffee exports. The data were collected from 2011 to 2020 and were obtained from Sunat-Customs Operations and Trade Map (Trade Intelligence Pages). The analysis was carried out by generating graphs and tables, using minitab 17 Spanish version software. The main destination of parchment coffee was Germany with 46749 tonnes, USA with 53113 tonnes and Belgium with 18445 tonnes. For decaffeinated unroasted coffee beans, the main importer was Germany with 162.47 tonnes. The main importer of decaffeinated roasted coffee was Chile (543.57 tonnes). However, it is noted that exportable parchment coffee from 2011 to 2020 is decreasing by 83,133 tonnes.El café es el producto más consumido en el mundo entre ellos están los países europeos. En ese sentido el objetivo principal de este artículo fue analizar la evolución competitiva de las exportaciones del café peruano. Los datos fueron recolectados desde el año 2011 al 2020 y se obtuvieron de la Sunat-Operatividad Aduanera y de Trade Map (Paginas de inteligencia comercial). El análisis se realizó mediante la generación de gráficos y tablas, se utilizó el software minitab 17 versión español. Su principal destino del café pergamino fue Alemania con 46749 toneladas, USA con 53113 toneladas y Bélgica 18445 toneladas. Para el Café descafeinado sin tostar en grano el principal importador fue Alemania con 162.47 toneladas. Mientras que el café tostado descafeinado su principal importador fue Chile (543.57 toneladas). Sin embargo, se alerta que el café pergamino exportable desde el año 2011 al 2020 está disminuyendo en 83, 133 toneladas

Can sustainability certification enhance the climate resilience of smallholder farmers? The case of Ghanaian cocoa

Sustainability certification has been posited as a key governance mechanism to enhance the climate resilience of smallholder farmers. Whilst many certifications now include climate resilience in their standards, their ability to deliver this for smallholders remains untested. We take the case of the 2015–16 drought-shock to cocoa production in Ghana to examine whether certification can enhance smallholder climate resilience. We used a novel transdisciplinary methodology combining participatory outcome definition with household surveys, biophysical measurements, satellite data and counterfactual analysis. Utilising our climate resilience framework, we find that certification has a strong effect on the adoption of basic management, e.g. fertilization, but a weak influence on more complex resilience strategies, e.g. agroforest diversification. Beyond certification, we identify strong regional patterns in resilience. These findings suggest that certification has some potential to enhance climate resilience but greater focus on facilitating diversification and adapting to sub-national contexts is required for improved effectiveness.publishedVersio

Mapping mountain peatlands and wet meadows using multi-date, multi-sensor remote sensing in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru

Wetlands (called bofedales in the Andes of Peru) are abundant and important components of many mountain ecosystems across the globe. They provide many benefits including water storage, high quality habitat, pasture, nutrient sinks and transformations, and carbon storage. The remote and rugged setting of mountain wetlands creates challenges for mapping, typically leading to misclassification and underestimates of wetland extent. We used multi-date, multi-sensor radar and optical imagery (Landsat TM/PALSAR/RADARSAT-1/SRTM DEM-TPI) combined with ground truthing for mapping wetlands in Huascarán National Park, Peru. We mapped bofedales into major wetland types: 1) cushion plant peatlands, 2) cushion plant wet meadows, and 3) graminoid wet meadows with an overall accuracy of 92%. A fourth wetland type was found (graminoid peatlands) but was too rare to map accurately, thus it was combined with cushion peatland to form a single peatland class. Total wetland area mapped in the National Park is 38,444 ha, which is 11% of the park area. Peatlands were the most abundant wetland type occupying 6.3% of the park, followed by graminoid wet meadows (3.5%) and cushion wet meadows (1.3%). These maps will serve as the foundation for improved management, including restoration, and estimates of landscape carbon stocks

Partial permutohedra

Partial permutohedra are lattice polytopes which were recently introduced and studied by Heuer and Striker [arXiv:2012.09901]. For positive integers m and n, the partial permutohedron P(m,n) is the convex hull of all vectors in {0,1,...,n}^m whose nonzero entries are distinct. We study the face lattice, volume and Ehrhart polynomial of P(m,n), and our methods and results include the following. For any m and n, we obtain a bijection between the nonempty faces of P(m,n) and certain chains of subsets of {1,...,m}, thereby confirming a conjecture of Heuer and Striker. We use this characterization of faces to obtain a closed expression for the h-polynomial of P(m,n). For any m and n with n ≥ m−1, we use a pyramidal subdivision of P(m,n) to establish a recursive formula for the normalized volume of P(m,n), from which we then obtain closed expressions for this volume. We also use a sculpting process (in which P(m,n) is reached by successively removing certain pieces from a simplex or hypercube) to obtain closed expressions for the Ehrhart polynomial of P(m,n) with arbitrary m and fixed n ≤ 3, the volume of P(m,4) with arbitrary m, and the Ehrhart polynomial of P(m,n) with fixed m ≤ 4 and arbitrary n ≥ m−1

Partial permutohedra

Partial permutohedra are lattice polytopes which were recently introduced and studied by Heuer and Striker. For positive integers m and n, the partial permutohedron P(m,n) is the convex hull of all vectors in {0,1,...,n}^m whose nonzero entries are distinct. We study the face lattice, volume and Ehrhart polynomial of P(m,n), and our methods and results include the following. For any m and n, we obtain a bijection between the nonempty faces of P(m,n) and certain chains of subsets of {1,...,m}, thereby confirming a conjecture of Heuer and Striker, and we then use this characterization of faces to obtain a closed expression for the h-polynomial of P(m,n). For any m and n with n ≥ m-1, we use a pyramidal subdivision of P(m,n) to establish a recursive formula for the normalized volume of P(m,n), from which we then obtain closed expressions for this volume. We also use a sculpting process (in which P(m,n) is reached by successively removing certain pieces from a simplex or hypercube) to obtain closed expressions for the Ehrhart polynomial of P(m,n) with arbitrary m and fixed n ≤ 3, the volume of P(m,4) with arbitrary m, and the Ehrhart polynomial of P(m,n) with fixed m ≤ 4 and arbitrary n ≥ m-1

Uso de la membrana amniótica como material de apósito en paciente con fascitis necrotizante: A propósito de un caso

Introduction: Necrotizing fasciitis is a serious infection that involves the skin, the subcutaneous tissue, and the superficial-deep fascia, it progresses very quickly, and if not treated in time it can cause death. Report case: We present the case of an adult patient with a history of anemia, who was diagnosed with odontogenic necrotizing fasciitis, for which she underwent surgery and underwent intraoral and extraoral drainage plus escharectomy. In addition, pharmacological treatment (intravenous antibiotics) was administered, and an amniotic membrane was placed as a dressing material to reconstruct the hemorrhagic surface left by the necrotizing fasciitis. Conclusions: The amniotic membrane as a dressing material presented favorable results in the patient, obtaining a rapid regeneration of the sequel produced by necrotizing fasciitis.Introducción: La fascitis necrotizante es una infección grave que involucra la piel, el tejido celular subcutáneo y las fascias superficiales-profundas, progresa muy rápidamente y si no se trata a tiempo puede causar la muerte. Reporte de caso: Presentamos el caso de una paciente adulta con antecedentes de anemia, a quien se le diagnosticó fascitis necrosante de origen odontogénico, por lo que fue intervenida quirúrgicamente y se realizó un drenaje intraoral y extraoral más escarectomía. Además, se le administró tratamiento farmacológico (antibióticos intravenosos) y se colocó una membrana amniótica como material de apósito para reconstruir la superficie hemorrágica dejada por la fascitis necrotizante. Conclusiones: La membrana amniótica como material de apósito presentó resultados favorables en la paciente al obtenerse una rápida regeneración de la secuela producida por la fascitis necrotizante