A project management approach to competitive intelligence

The research problem that this study seeks to solve is to examine the relationship between competitive intelligence (CI) and project management (PM). These disciplines coincide in their threefold approach to action, collection of results, and ability to react in response to environmental signs. However, the academic and professional literature has not explored the possible synergies between CI and PM, with the exception of the seminal proposals by Prescott in 1988 and 1999. The aim of this opinion article is to propose a new methodological approach for the production and transfer of CI in accordance with the international standards of PM. The methodology consists of an inductive reasoning process from specific observations and evidence gathered in our professional experience as CI practitioners over twenty years, contrasted with the findings of the scientific literature, the PMBOK® Guide of the Project Management Institute, and with the CI model proposed by the most relevant Spanish technical standards in R&D&I management and strategic intelligence management. The paper discusses the vision of intelligence production and dissemination in a project with five phases or groups of processes: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, and closure. Also, the responsibilities of the human intelligence team are exposed. This proposal could be an alternative to the departmental-based intelligence cycle model more aligned with the organizational culture and the usual operational practices and business processes of companies, founded on the design and deployment of projects with a specific beginning and end that is carried out to create a product, service or unique result. It is concluded also that there is a need for undertaking experimental implementation and case studies of this proposal in companies and their assessment by future academic studies

Digital Competences for Improving Digital Inclusion in E-Government Services: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review Protocol

The e-government requires citizens that have a certain level of digital skills. Contact restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of Public Administration in most countries and has increased the social digital divide. Therefore, the training of citizens in digital competences is one of the main challenges of the knowledge society. This mixed-methods systematic review protocol aims to synthesize quantitative and qualitative findings about conditioning factors of digital inclusion, in a multidimensional perspective, related with the education, healthcare and welfare sectors and the political actions involved to improve the digital competences of citizenship for allowing and enhancing their interactions with these online public services. The protocol has been written following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) guidelines. Nine databases including Web of Science, Scopus, Educational Resources Information Center Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA), ProQuest, MEDLINE, PubMed, SocINDEX and Cairn.info will be searched for peer-reviewed empirical studies published from 2011 or later. Grey literature and citation chaining will be undertaken. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods studies will be included. Data items will be extracted and coded in a standardized format. A convergent segregated approach to synthesis and integration will be used. The results will be of interest to educational policymakers who want to take into account citizens'' digital skills in the design of online services and lifelong learning programs

El marco disciplinar de los lenguajes documentales: la Organización del Conocimiento y las Ciencias Sociales

Contribution to the building of a concept of documentary languages, and the analysis of its disciplinary context. Instead of documentary language a new term is proposed and defined: documentary information representation and organization system. Knowledge Organization studies the principles and instruments for human knowledge management from the perspective of its documentary representation, organization and communication. The tasks of Knowledge Scire. 2 : 1 (en.-jun. 1996). Organization for consolidate like an stable scientific discipline, and for define its rapports with other sciences are exposed. The dangers for the research and its scientific status derived from the inclusion in the Social Sciences are described. (Author)Contribución a la conceptualización de los lenguajes documentales y al análisis de su contexto disciplinar. Se propone la utilización de sistema de representación y organización de la información documental como término más adecuado que lenguaje documental. Se analizan sus caracteres a partir de la definición de cada una de las palabras componentes del término. Se presenta la Organización del Conocimiento como la disciplina científica que se ocupa de los principios e instrumentos que se emplean para la gestión del conocimiento humano desde la perspectiva de su representación, su organización y su comunicación documental. Se exponen los retos a que esta disciplina debe responder para lograr su consolidación como un cuerpo de conocimientos y habilidades estables y acumulativos y para definir su relación con otras ciencias. Se reflexiona sobre los riesgos que derivan para la investigación y su estatuto científico de su consideración como una ciencia social. (Autor

Fundamentos epistemológicos de la clasificación documental

Building an explicative and pragmatic theory of the Knowledge Organization requires the elaboration of a precise conceptualization of its basic elements from an interdisciplinary perspective. Therefore, the analysis of three cognitive human resources to build concepts and to understand the world (the capacity of order, classify and organize), serves to explain the most characteristic qualities of the documentary processes of ordering, classifying and organizing. Classifying by means of the selective and relational criteria is considered positive for the information retrieval. The descriptive and reductionist conceptions of the documental classification are discussed. Alternatively, a concept based on the observation of the analytical and synthetical intellectual process of the indexing and classifying is propossed. So, a unique definition is essayed for all kind of information centres and documentary languages. (Author)La elaboración de una teoría de la Organización del Conocimiento capaz de explicar y afrontar los retos actuales, exige la construcción de un concepto preciso de sus elementos básicos desde una perspectiva interdisciplinar. Así, se presentan los rasgo smás relevantes de los procesos documentales de ordenación, clasificación y organización a partir del análisis de algunos de los caracteres de los recursos cognitivos que el hombre pone en acción para construir conceptos y comprender el mundo, como la capacidad de ordenar, clasificar y organizar. Se destaca también como un elemento positivo para el tratamiento documental, el hecho de que la actividad clasificatoria se efectúe siempre mediante criterios selectivos y relacionales. A continuación, se critican las aproximaciones descriptivistas yreduccionistas a la clasificación documental, para proponer un concept oque parta de la observación del proceso intelectual analítico y sintético que se pone en acción durante su ejercicio, con independencia del centro de información en el que se efectúe y el lenguaje documental que se utilice. Se termina con un ensayo de definición que atiende a la dimensión operativa e instrumental del a clasificación documental, presentando los ejes que deben articular una elaboración más profunda. (Autor

Los lenguajes documentales ante el paso de la organización de la realidad y el saber a la organización del conocimiento

The hypothesis about the need of the study of the history and typology of documentary languages is emphasized to elaborate an operative and precise concept of knowledge organization for information retrieval. The actual character of that history is discussed. Alternatively, is proposed an analysis based on the evolution of these facts: the information centers and the content of their documents, the thinking of the information managers, the scientific classification systems and the ideas of order, classification and organization. The adoption of an interdisciplinary approach permits discover the utility of the historical study of the classification activity and of the analysis of the systems, criteria and methods of the classification construction, effectuates by a branch of the Epistemology: the Taxonomy. The history of the system of sciences from Aristote to the 20th century and the comparison of the similitudes and differences among the bibliographic universal classifications and the scientific taxonomies show that the firsts assumed something of the principal characters of these in the 19th century, but their birth implied too a revolutionary change: the passage of the object, idea and thought classification to the knowledge classification. So, their growing resolved something epistemologic problems posed by the scientific taxonomies in the last century. However, the origin of the hierachical and associative structure of the documentary languages must to find in the tradition of librarian work. Finally, techniques are deduced for to optimize the knowledge representation and organization devices. The artificiality and the modificability of all classifications, whit their consequent relative and precarious character, oblige to create some flexible and adaptive documental classifications, whit capacity for to integrate the changes on the nature to organize. (Author)Se defiende la hipótesis de que el estudio de la historia del concepto y la tipología de los lenguajes documentales es necesario para construir un concepto de organización del conocimiento preciso y operativo desde una perspectiva documental. Tras discutir el carácter que presenta, se propone la necesidad de ensayar un análisis que atienda a la evolución de cuatro fenómenos: los centros de información y el contenido de los documentos, la concepción del mundo de los documentalistas, los sistemas de clasificación de los científicos y los conceptos de ordenar, clasificar y organizar. La adopción de una perspectiva interdisciplinar permite descubrir la utilidad del estudio histórico de la actividad de clasificación y del análisis de los sistemas, criterios y métodos de construcción de las clasificaciones, efectuados por una rama de la Epistemología: la Taxonomía. La historia del sistema de las ciencias desde Aristóteles hasta el siglo XX y la comparación de las semejanzas y diferencias entre las clasificaciones bibliográficas universales y las taxonomías científicas muestra que las primeras asumieron varios de los principales caracteres de éstas durante el siglo XIX, si bien su nacimiento también supuso un cambio revolucionario: el paso de la clasificación de los objetos, las ideas y los saberes a la clasificación de los conocimientos. Asimismo, su aparición resolvió algunos problemas epistemológicos planteados por esas clasificaciones en el siglo pasado. Sin embargo, el origen de los dos tipos principales de estructura de los lenguajes documentales, la jerárquica y la combinatoria, debe buscarse en la tradición bibliotecaria. Finalmente, se deducen fórmulas para la optimización de los instrumentos de representación y organización del conocimiento. La artificialidad y modificabilidad de todas las clasificaciones, con su consiguiente relatividad y precariedad, obligan a crear unas clasificaciones documentales flexibles, adaptados a su entorno y con capacidad de integración de los cambios que se producen en la realidad a organizar. (Autor

Pixel Features for Self-organizing Map Based Detection of Foreground Objects in Dynamic Environments

Among current foreground detection algorithms for video sequences, methods based on self-organizing maps are obtaining a greater relevance. In this work we propose a probabilistic self-organising map based model, which uses a uniform distribution to represent the foreground. A suitable set of characteristic pixel features is chosen to train the probabilistic model. Our approach has been compared to some competing methods on a test set of benchmark videos, with favorable results.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Clinical Significance of Langerhans Cells in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Larynx

Langerhans cells (LCs) may be involved in the immunosurveillance against tumors as antigen-presenting cells. Our objective has been to determine the relevance of LC in progression of larynx squamous cell carcinomas and their relationship with different subpopulations of tumor-infiltrating cells. LCs were investigated by immunohistochemical methods using anti-CD1 antibody. LCs were detected in most of the primary tumors studied (44 out of 50) and also in metastases (6 out of 10) and recurrences (2 out of 3), but we did not find any statistical association between number of LCs and clinical-pathological parameters or survival. However, the number of LCs was increased in patients with evident infiltration of lymphocytes, mainly cytotoxic T cells. We can conclude that although LCs did not show clinical utility as prognostic marker, they may play a role in releasing an active immune response in larynx carcinomas, according to their ability to present antigens to sensitized T cells

Presentación

Cuando nos propusimos convocar a especialistas e investigadores/as en la temática “La formación de grado en Historia” para este Dossier, nos planteaos como propósito poner en discusión un conjunto temas referidos de la enseñanza universitaria de la Historia. Entre otros tantos: los planes de estudio de las carreras universitarias de historia en Argentina y sus modificaciones a lo largo del tiempo, el impacto de la Ley de Educación Superior (LES) en las carreras de grado de Historia, el impacto de la Ley Federal de Educación (LFE) y sus modificatorias en la inserción y calidad del trabajo de los/as egresados/as universitarios en Historia, los debates en torno a la acreditación en la Comisión Nacional de Evaluación y Acreditación Universitaria (CONEAU) y en la Asociación Nacional de Facultades de Humanidades y Educación (ANFHE) de las carreras de Historia, debates teórico y metodológicos que favorezcan la discusión y reflexión alrededor de las líneas directrices de la formación de grado en Historia -lo que incluye cuestiones didácticas, pedagógicas y epistemológicas, etc

Sistema y dispositivo condensador de recogida de agua del medio ambiente

Sistema y dispositivo condensador para la recogida de agua del medio ambiente. El dispositivo condensador (26) comprende: - dos células peltier (1,2); - medios disipadores de calor (4) en contacto con la cara caliente de las células peltier (1,2); - una superficie de condensación (6) en contacto con la cara fría de las células peltier (1,2); - un habitáculo (9) para alojar las células peltier (1,2), delimitando una cámara fría (10) y una cámara caliente (11), con aberturas para la salida del aire (13,15) en ambas cámaras (10,11) y abertura regulable (14) para la entrada de aire en la cámara fría (10); - medios sensores de humedad relativa (17) y de temperatura (16) del aire en el interior de la cámara fría (10); - medios sensores de temperatura (7) de la superficie de condensación (6); - medios de recogida (18,19,20,21) del agua condensada en la superficie de condensación (6)

Radiative Upsilon decays and a light pseudoscalar Higgs in the NMSSM

We study possible effects of a light CP-odd Higgs boson on radiative Upsilon decays in the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. Recent constraints from CLEO on radiative Upsilon(1S) decays are translated into constraints on the parameter space of CP-odd Higgs boson masses and couplings, and compared to constraints from B physics and the muon anomalous magnetic moment. Possible Higgs - eta_b(nS) mixing effects are discussed, notably in the light of the recent measurement of the eta_b(1S) mass by Babar: The somewhat large Upsilon(1S) - eta_b(1S) hyperfine splitting could easily be explained by the presence of a CP-odd Higgs boson with a mass in the range 9.4 - 10.5 GeV. Then, tests of lepton universality in inclusive radiative Upsilon decays can provide a visible signal in forthcoming experimental data.Comment: 20 pages, 11 Figs, references correcte