El diseño de sistemas producto - servicios ecoeficientes. Una experiencia de investigación, formación y extensión académica

El documento muestra los avances de la validación de la metodología HIDRA para el diseño y la construcción de Sistemas Producto-Servicios ecoeficientes. Se busca socializar la experiencia de trabajo ininterrumpido en el aula, investigativo y en acompañamiento a MiPyMEs para desarrollar factores de competitividad basados en el desempeño ambiental, a su medida y la del contexto. Se quiere mostrar cómo esta iniciativa obedece a procesos sinérgicos de investigación, formación y extensión, así como la mirada sobre este sistema y sus niveles de aplicación en la Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Sede Palmira y la Universidad Autónoma de Colombia, instituciones donde se desempeñan las autoras

Evaluation of H.264/AVC over IEEE 802.11p vehicular networks

[Abstract]: The capacity of vehicular networks to offer non-safety services, like infotainment applications or the exchange of multimedia information between vehicles, have attracted a great deal of attention to the field of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). In particular, in this article we focus our attention on IEEE 802.11p which defines enhancements to IEEE 802.11 required to support ITS applications. We present an FPGA-based testbed developed to evaluate H.264/AVC (Advanced Video Coding) video transmission over vehicular networks. The testbed covers some of the most common situations in vehicle-to-vehicle and roadside-to-vehicle communications and it is highly flexible, allowing the performance evaluation of different vehicular standard configurations. We also show several experimental results to illustrate the quality obtained when H.264/AVC encoded video is transmitted over IEEE 802.11p networks. The quality is measured considering two important parameters: the percentage of recovered group of pictures and the frame quality. In order to improve performance, we propose to substitute the convolutional channel encoder used in IEEE 802.11p for a low-density parity-check code encoder. In addition, we suggest a simple strategy to decide the optimum number of iterations needed to decode each packet received.This study was funded by Xunta de Galicia, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion´ of Spain, and FEDER funds of the European Union under grants with numbers 10TIC105003PR, TEC2010-19545-C04-01, and CSD2008-00010.Xunta de Galicia; 10TIC105003P

Home Automation System based on Intelligent Transducer Enablers

This paper presents a novel home automation system named HASITE (Home Automation System based on Intelligent Transducer Enablers), which has been specifically designed to identify and configure transducers easily and quickly. These features are especially useful in situations where many transducers are deployed, since their setup becomes a cumbersome task that consumes a significant amount of time and human resources. HASITE simplifies the deployment of a home automation system by using wireless networks and both self-configuration and self-registration protocols. Thanks to the application of these three elements, HASITE is able to add new transducers by just powering them up. According to the tests performed in different realistic scenarios, a transducer is ready to be used in less than 13 s. Moreover, all HASITE functionalities can be accessed through an API, which also allows for the integration of third-party systems. As an example, an Android application based on the API is presented. Remote users can use it to interact with transducers by just using a regular smartphone or a tablet.Comment: 27 pages, 17 figures, accepted version of Sensors journal articl

Insights on the health benefits of the bioactive compounds of coffee silverskin extract

The bioaccessibility of chlorogenic acid (CGA) and caffeine in coffee silverskin extracts (CSE) and the contribution of these substances to the prophylactic effect of CSE on the pathogenesis of diabetes have not been reported. This study aimed to evaluate the bioaccessibility, bioavailability and bioactivity of CGA and caffeine alone and in CSE in the pancreas of rats treated with streptozotocin-nicotinamide (type 2 diabetes model). Metabolism of CGA and caffeine started in the gastrointestinal tract due to changes of pH taking place during digestion. Their metabolites protected pancreatic cells against the risk of diabetes. This is the first in vivo study to demonstrate a specific chemo-protective effect of CSE in pancreatic tissue, and this effect may be associated with its antioxidant capacity. Daily administration of CSE, CGA or caffeine 35 d previous to the induction of diabetes significantly reduced (p < 0.05) pancreatic oxidative stress and protein damage.This work was supported by grants from SUSCOFFEE (AGL2014-57239-R) and SAMID (RD12/0026). B. Fernandez-Gomez thanks the PhD program of MINECO for supporting her research career (BES-2011-046827). SAMID RETICS is funded by the PN I+D+I 2012-2016 (Spain), ISCIII- Sub-Directorate General for Research Assessment and Promotion and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), ref. RD12/0026.Peer Reviewe

Spondyloarthropathies in Autoimmune Diseases and Vice Versa

Polyautoimmunity is one of the major clinical characteristics of autoimmune diseases (ADs). The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of ADs in spondyloarthropathies (SpAs) and vice versa. This was a two-phase cross-sectional study. First, we examined the presence of ADs in a cohort of patients with SpAs (N = 148). Second, we searched for the presence of SpAs in a well-defined group of patients with ADs (N = 1077) including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and Sjögren's syndrome (SS). Among patients with SpAs, ankylosing spondylitis was observed in the majority of them (55.6%). There were two patients presenting with SS in the SpA group (1.4%) and 5 patients with autoimmune thyroiditis (3.5%). The global prevalence of ADs in SpAs was 4.86%. In the ADs group, there were 5 patients with SpAs (0.46%). Our results suggest a lack of association between SpAs and ADs. Accordingly, SpAs might correspond more to autoinflammatory diseases rather than to ADs

A benchmark for endoluminal scene segmentation of colonoscopy images

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third cause of cancer death worldwide. Currently, the standard approach to reduce CRC-related mortality is to perform regular screening in search for polyps and colonoscopy is the screening tool of choice. The main limitations of this screening procedure are polyp miss rate and the inability to perform visual assessment of polyp malignancy. These drawbacks can be reduced by designing decision support systems (DSS) aiming to help clinicians in the different stages of the procedure by providing endoluminal scene segmentation. Thus, in this paper, we introduce an extended benchmark of colonoscopy image segmentation, with the hope of establishing a new strong benchmark for colonoscopy image analysis research. The proposed dataset consists of 4 relevant classes to inspect the endoluminal scene, targeting different clinical needs. Together with the dataset and taking advantage of advances in semantic segmentation literature, we provide new baselines by training standard fully convolutional networks (FCNs). We perform a comparative study to show that FCNs significantly outperform, without any further postprocessing, prior results in endoluminal scene segmentation, especially with respect to polyp segmentation and localization

Determinación y evaluación de competencias asociadas a la actividad experimental

Las competencias son sistemas de reflexión-acción que han de poder transferirse de manera creativa a diferentes contextos, situaciones y problemas. Dan la posibilidad de desenvolverse en situaciones complejas en un contexto determinado, resultado de la integración, movilización y adecuación de capacidades, conocimientos, actitudes y valores. Esta complejidad ha de ser reconocida expresamente en el proceso de aprendizaje para que la propuesta pedagógica incluya las actividades que posibiliten el desarrollo de competencias. Ello conlleva la reflexión acerca del rol docente y de las estrategias didácticas necesarias para trabajar en un proceso de enseñanza de tales características. Se describe en este trabajo lo realizado en el marco del proyecto Polimodal: desafíos alrededor de competencias experimentales, en el cual se llevó a cabo la elaboración de un modelo propio de competencias asociadas a la actividad experimental y se desarrolló un instrumento para el seguimiento del desarrollo de los componentes de las competencias que se ponen en juego durante el trabajo experimental. En el marco del mencionado Proyecto, un grupo de docentes de Enseñanza Secundaria y de Universidad trabajaron conjuntamente en el análisis, discusión y búsqueda de consenso, entre actores de los dos niveles educativos, acerca de la idea de competencias y de cómo evaluar el aprendizaje de los estudiantes en este marco. Ello sirvió para revalorizar la importancia del trabajo experimental en el aprendizaje de las ciencias y en el desarrollo de competencias y podría constituirse en una estrategia válida para facilitar el tránsito de los alumnos entre ambos niveles

Life cycle analysis of macauba palm cultivation: A promising crop for biofuel production

The 450 Scenario, which limits the increase in global average temperature to 2¿°C, makes it necessary to take steps towards a low-carbon economy. Since the energy sector is a major contribution to anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the production of biofuels can play a key role in strategies aimed at climate change mitigation. In this regard, the oil derived from macauba palm (Acrocomia aculeata), mainly constituted of saturated organic chains, has been claimed to hold promise for the production of liquid fuels. The high potential yield, diversity of co-products and various positive features of this emerging energy crop make it an interesting option both from a social and an environmental point of view. Nonetheless, a full environmental evaluation is still missing. In the study presented herein, the impacts produced in its plantation, cultivation and harvesting phases and the associated cumulative energy demand have been determined using a life cycle analysis methodology, in addition to shedding some light on its GHG intensity relative to the other energy crops it can displace. Excluding land use changes and biogenic CO2 fixed by the crop, it was concluded that to produce one ton of macauba fruit in Brazil, the system would absorb 1810.21¿MJ, with GHG emissions of 158.69¿kg CO2eq in the 20-year timeframe, and of 140.04¿kg CO2eq in the 100-year timeframe (comparable to those of African oil palm). Damage to human health, ecosystem quality, and resources would add up to 16¿Pt·t-1 according to Eco-indicator 99 methodology. In order to account for the uncertainty derived from improvement and domestication programs, which should affect current production levels, a sensitivity analysis for different productivities was performed. In all analyses, fertilization was found to be responsible for ca. 90% of the impacts, and hence special attention should be paid to the development of alternative fertilizer management schemes