Embotelladoras ARCA Uses Operations Research to Improve Territory Design Plans

Embotelladoras ARCA was formed in 2001 by integrating three of the oldest bottlers in Mexico and became the second largest bottler of Coca-Cola products in Latin America. The company distributes its products in the northern region of Mexico and, since 2008, in the north of Argentina and Ecuador. The company have soft-drink sales of more than 1.2 billion unit cases and ranks as the third-largest Coca-Cola bottler in the world. The large size of the market and the relevance of a number of problems faced by the company motivate the use and application of operations research models and techniques One of the most relevant problems the company faces is that of how to segment or partition their customers into clusters or territories to accomodate for a better handling of marketing and distribution decisions. This territory design is not entirely arbitrary since it must satisfy several planning requirements such as territory compactness, territory connectivity, territory balancing, and similarity with existing design. Before 2009, these units were defined by “experience” without quantitative tools giving more weight to the territory compactness criterion. This led to a number of undesirable issues such as highly unbalanced territories, that is, the plans ended up with a large disparity in size with respect to both number of customers and total product sales. This imbalance had a negative effect among company workers since each territory (customer order capturing by sales associates, product routing by truck drivers, and so on) is handled by a different team. In this paper, we apply operations research methods to determine better configurations of the territorial units to ensure that each formed territory is relatively similar in size with respect to both number of customers and total product sales while ensuring some other important planning requirements and maximizing territory compactness. The usage of this methodology has resulted in many important benefits for the company, in particular, it has had a significant improvement with respect to the territory imbalances improving from 30 to 5 %. We highlight some other side benefits resulting from this approach. The company has adopted this proposed tool to make their territory design decisions

Necrotizing entercolitis: socio-demographic, clinical and histopathological findings in a series of neonatal autopsies

La enterocolitis necrotizante es un trastorno caracterizado por la necrosis isquémica de la mucosa intestinal, es la enfermedad gastrointestinal más grave que afecta a los neonatos, con alta morbilidad y mortalidad, principalmente en prematuros. El objetivo del presente estudio es describir las características clínicas y anatomopatológicas de los recién nacidos fallecidos con enterocolitis necrotizante, diagnosticados en un hospital de alta complejidad. Metodología. Este es un estudio descriptivo retrospectivo de 21 casos de autopsias médico-científicas hechas en un hospital de alta complejidad del nororiente colombiano, con hallazgos anatomopatológicos de enterocolitis necrotizante, realizadas entre enero de 2013 y julio de 2017. Resultados. El 85.7% de los recién nacidos eran pretérminos, un igual porcentaje presentaba un peso menor a 2,500 gramos al nacer. Respecto a los antecedentes maternos el 14.3% tuvieron espectro de trastornos hipertensivos asociados al embarazo y el 23.8% infección materna. Los tres sitios más frecuentes de ubicación de enterocolitis necrotizantes fue íleon, colon ascendente y colon transverso. Discusión. Según algunos autores, hasta el 85% de todos los casos de enterocolitis necrotizante ocurren en pacientes prematuros, especialmente en bebés con peso extremadamente bajo al nacer. Hay formas de enterocolitis necrotizante que ocurren en bebés a término y, generalmente, están asociadas con factores predisponentes, resultados compatibles con lo que encontramos en esta investigación. Conclusiones. Este estudio elaborado con población colombiana se correlaciona con lo descrito en la población mundial en la cual la enterocolitis necrotizante se presenta más en los recién nacidos pretérmino y con bajo peso al nacer.Necrotizing entercolitis is a disorder characterized by the ischemic necrosis of intestinal mucosa. It is the most serious gastrointestinal disease affecting neonates, with high morbidity and mortality rates, mainly among premature newborns. The purpose of this study is to describe the clinical and anatamo-pathological characteristics of deceased newborns with necrotizing entercolitis, diagnosed at a high-complexity hospital. Methodology. This is a descriptive retrospective study of 21 cases of medical-scientific autopsies performed at a high-complexity hospital in northeastern Colombia, with anatomo-pathological findings of necrotizing entercolitis, performed between January 2013 and July 2017. Results. 85.7% of the newborns were pre-term, and the same percentage had weight at birth below 2.5 kilograms. Regarding the mothers’ background, 14.3% displayed a spectrum of hypertensive disorders associated with pregnancy, and 23.8% had maternal infections. The three most frequent locations of necrotizing entercolitis were the ileum, ascending colon and transverse colon. Discussion. According to some authors, up to 85% of all cases of necrotizing entercolitis occur in premature patients, especially in babies with extremely low weight at birth. There are forms of necrotizing entercolitis that occur in full term babies, and they are generally associated with contributing factors, which is consistent with the findings of this study. Conclusions. This study of a Colombian population is consistent with other descriptions of the global population, where necrotizing entercolitis arises more frequently in pre-term newborns and low weight at birth

Pandemia del SARS-COV-2: medidas de bioseguridad para la atención odontológica. Revisión sistemática exploratoria

30 p.La pandemia del coronavirus tiene como agente etiológico al SARS-COV-2. Reportado por primera vez en Wuhan, China, tuvo una rápida expansión por todo el mundo. Esto generó una crisis en los sistemas sanitarios de muchos países, y a modo de evitar la propagación de la infección se suspendió la atención odontológica por el alto riesgo de contagio. Diferentes entidades sanitarias han presentado sugerencias y recomendaciones para disminuir el riesgo de infección cruzada. Un gran problema radica en el uso deficiente de los elementos de protección personal (EPP) y un inadecuado control de infecciones. Sin embargo, el mayor inconveniente, que, al ser una enfermedad tan reciente, existe poca evidencia y la información reportada en la literatura es muy dinámica y varía entre países, incluso dentro de un mismo país los protocolos y medidas van cambiando. Para prevenir al máximo el contagio de odontólogos, asistentes dentales y pacientes es que esta Revisión Exploratoria tiene como objetivo describir las medidas de bioseguridad reportadas en la literatura para la atención odontológica durante la pandemia COVID-19 hasta abril 2020

Phylodynamics of Hepatitis C Virus Subtype 2c in the Province of Córdoba, Argentina

The Hepatitis C Virus Genotype 2 subtype 2c (HCV-2c) is detected as a low prevalence subtype in many countries, except in Southern Europe and Western Africa. The current epidemiology of HCV in Argentina, a low-prevalence country, shows the expected low prevalence for this subtype. However, this subtype is the most prevalent in the central province of Córdoba. Cruz del Eje (CdE), a small rural city of this province, shows a prevalence for HCV infections of 5%, being 90% of the samples classified as HCV-2c. In other locations of Córdoba Province (OLC) with lower prevalence for HCV, HCV-2c was recorded in about 50% of the samples. The phylogenetic analysis of samples from Córdoba Province consistently conformed a monophyletic group with HCV-2c sequences from all the countries where HCV-2c has been sequenced. The phylogeographic analysis showed an overall association between geographical traits and phylogeny, being these associations significant (α = 0.05) for Italy, France, Argentina (places other than Córdoba), Martinique, CdE and OLC. The coalescence analysis for samples from CdE, OLC and France yielded a Time for the Most Common Recent Ancestor of about 140 years, whereas its demographic reconstruction showed a “lag” phase in the viral population until 1880 and then an exponential growth until 1940. These results were also obtained when each geographical area was analyzed separately, suggesting that HCV-2c came into Córdoba province during the migration process, mainly from Europe, which is compatible with the history of Argentina of the early 20th century. This also suggests that the spread of HCV-2c occurred in Europe and South America almost simultaneously, possibly as a result of the advances in medicine technology of the first half of the 20th century