Análisis de la cadena de valor del cacao en Colombia: generación de estrategias tecnológicas en operaciones de cosecha y poscosecha, organizativas, de capacidad instalada y de mercado

El cacao ha sido priorizado en Colombia como uno de los productos agropecuarios con mayor potencial, gracias al reconocimiento mundial de la calidad de los genotipos que se cultivan en el país, con lo cual puede posicionarse en el nicho de cacaos especiales. Sin embargo, se han identificado problemas en la cadena de valor, tales como la baja calidad del cacao, el bajo desarrollo tecnológico en las operaciones de transformación de la poscosecha en las principales zonas productoras de Colombia, el desconocimiento de los parámetros de calidad por parte de los eslabones de productores y comercializadores, el desconocimiento de los requisitos de los mercados internacionales y los problemas de asociatividad, confianza e integración de los eslabones de la cadena. Este estudio presenta una hoja de ruta para generar estrategias tecnológicas en las operaciones de cosecha y poscosecha, estrategias organizativas, de capacidad instalada y de comercialización para el sector cacaotero en Colombia. Las estrategias fueron formuladas como proyectos de investigación y desarrollo, empleando metodologías de análisis de cadenas productivas agroindustriales, las cuales, mediante el uso articulado de herramientas de gestión como la vigilancia tecnológica y comercial, el benchmarking y el diagnóstico tecnológico por eslabones de cadenas productivas, conducen a la identificación de brechas tecnológicas. Estas brechas, identificadas y valoradas para cada una de las regiones de Colombia seleccionadas en el estudio, se constituyen en insumos importantes para plantear los proyectos de investigación y transferencia de tecnología que permitan solventarlas. A partir del análisis de brechas, se estructuró una hoja de ruta que permitiese de forma sistemática y estructurada, valorar como convergen e influyen las distintas áreas, temáticas, variables y/o aspectos propios de las dinámicas de cada territorio: económicos, sociales, tecnológicos, culturales, políticos, ambientales, etc. En este sentido, se plantearon 30 proyectos en la hoja de ruta que con guías para su implementación permitirán contribuir al desarrollo estratégico del futuro del sector cacaotero colombiano. Entre estos se destaca el diseño y gestión de los procesos de cosecha y poscosecha en función de la calidad, considerándola como eje transversal para la obtención de un producto final con características diferenciadas, que le permitan satisfacer las necesidades y cumplir los requerimientos de mercados especializados. La puesta en marcha de esas iniciativas deberán ir acompañadas de la ejecución de otros proyectos dirigidos a establecer una fuerte estrategia de fortalecimiento de capacidades de los actores de la cadena, a nivel local en los distintos territorios productores, incentivos para la conformación de redes de trabajo e impulso hacia la búsqueda y posicionamiento de nuevos mercados; así mismo, articularse a planes de innovación participativa y de transferencia, y evaluaciones de impacto (ex ante y ex post) en los territorios en los cuales sean aplicadasAbstract. The cocoa has been prioritized in Colombia as one of the agricultural products with greater market opportunities in the special cocoa segment, thanks to the worldwide recognition of the quality of the cocoa genotypes that are grown in the country. However, some problems have been identified across the cocoa value chain, such as the poor quality of cocoa beans, low technological development in post-harvest processing, lack of cocoa beans quality parameters, the lack of knowledge of international market cocoa requirements and the associativity problems, trust and integration of the links of the chain. This paper presents a roadmap to make technological strategies in the harvesting and postharvest operations, organizational strategies, installed capacity and marketing strategies for the cocoa sector in Colombia. For the formulation of the strategies, which are constituted as research projects, were used methodologies implemented in other works for the analysis of agroindustry productive chains, which, through the articulated use of management tools such as technological surveillance and commercial, benchmarking and chain performance analysis, result to the identification of technological gaps. These gaps, were identified and valued for each region, this gaps are inputs to formulate research and technology transfer projects to solve these problems. With the gap analysis results, a roadmap was structured considering the dynamics of each covered territory (economic, social, technological, cultural, political and environmental variables). In this way, were formulated 30 alternative solutions as projects, which contribute to strategically address the future of the Colombian cocoa sector. Of these, the design and management of the processes of harvesting and post-harvest processing of cocoa should be carried out as a function of quality, and to consider this as a transverse axis to produce a final product with differentiated characteristics, which allow it to satisfy the requirements of specialized markets. The implementation of these initiatives should be accompanied by the implementation of other projects aimed at establishing a strong strategy to strengthen the capacities of the actors of the chain, at local level in the different producing territories, incentives for the creation of networks and impulse towards the search and positioning of new markets; and to coordinate participatory innovation and transfer plans and impact assessments in the territories in which they are implemented.Maestrí

Capacidades en ciencia y tecnología del sector agropecuario colombiano 2012

Este análisis se constituye en un documento de apoyo a la gestión de la Ciencia y Tecnología sectorial, que busca motivar a las instituciones públicas y privadas a continuar concentrando esfuerzos y sinergias que fortalezcan el accionar del SNCTA, que se traduzca en una mayor competitividad del sector agropecuario colombiano

Sembrando innovación para la competitividad del sector agropecuario colombiano

Las dinámicas del sector agroindustrial han exigido a los países mejorar la calidad de productos, hacer eficientes e innovadores los procesos de producción y comercialización, y diversificar productos y mercados. Estos retos han dirigido al Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, a promover la definición de agendas de investigación, desarrollo tecnológico e innovación, para reconocer y priorizar las problemáticas sectoriales tecnológicas y no tecnológicas, y focalizar y asignar recursos

Impacts of the Tropical Pacific/Indian Oceans on the Seasonal Cycle of the West African Monsoon

The current consensus is that drought has developed in the Sahel during the second half of the twentieth century as a result of remote effects of oceanic anomalies amplified by local land–atmosphere interactions. This paper focuses on the impacts of oceanic anomalies upon West African climate and specifically aims to identify those from SST anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Oceans during spring and summer seasons, when they were significant. Idealized sensitivity experiments are performed with four atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs). The prescribed SST patterns used in the AGCMs are based on the leading mode of covariability between SST anomalies over the Pacific/Indian Oceans and summer rainfall over West Africa. The results show that such oceanic anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Ocean lead to a northward shift of an anomalous dry belt from the Gulf of Guinea to the Sahel as the season advances. In the Sahel, the magnitude of rainfall anomalies is comparable to that obtained by other authors using SST anomalies confined to the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean. The mechanism connecting the Pacific/Indian SST anomalies with West African rainfall has a strong seasonal cycle. In spring (May and June), anomalous subsidence develops over both the Maritime Continent and the equatorial Atlantic in response to the enhanced equatorial heating. Precipitation increases over continental West Africa in association with stronger zonal convergence of moisture. In addition, precipitation decreases over the Gulf of Guinea. During the monsoon peak (July and August), the SST anomalies move westward over the equatorial Pacific and the two regions where subsidence occurred earlier in the seasons merge over West Africa. The monsoon weakens and rainfall decreases over the Sahel, especially in August.Peer reviewe

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks

A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t (t) over bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95 confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg -> X) B(X -> HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with amass scale Lambda(R) = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV

Search for supersymmetry in events with one lepton and multiple jets in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

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Measurement of the top quark mass using charged particles in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV

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An embedding technique to determine ττ backgrounds in proton-proton collision data

An embedding technique is presented to estimate standard model tau tau backgrounds from data with minimal simulation input. In the data, the muons are removed from reconstructed mu mu events and replaced with simulated tau leptons with the same kinematic properties. In this way, a set of hybrid events is obtained that does not rely on simulation except for the decay of the tau leptons. The challenges in describing the underlying event or the production of associated jets in the simulation are avoided. The technique described in this paper was developed for CMS. Its validation and the inherent uncertainties are also discussed. The demonstration of the performance of the technique is based on a sample of proton-proton collisions collected by CMS in 2017 at root s = 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 41.5 fb(-1).Peer reviewe