Sistema Basado en Conocimiento para el Ecosistema de Emprendimiento

Sistema Basado en Conocimiento para el Ecosistema de EmprendimientoEn México existen apoyos económicos para el ecosistema de emprendimiento enfocados a jóvenes con iniciativas novedosas, por ello las instituciones superiores emplean estrategias para que sus egresados visualicen como una opción pertenecer al ecosistema de emprendimiento, entre ellas, la creación de incubadoras de empresas, concursos de innovación, becas de investigación. Dentro de este ecosistema se encuentran tres actores principales: el investigador, el emprendedor y el innovador. Desafortunadamente, los estudiantes de nivel superior no tienen clara la diferencia en conocimientos, habilidades y actitudes que debe tener cada uno de ellos; así como tampoco disciernen entre las actividades que realizan. Por esta razón, en este trabajo se propone un sistema basado en conocimiento para el ecosistema del emprendimiento, el cual puede actuar como un experto sobre demanda en este dominio. Este sistema busca ser una herramienta de apoyo al clasificar al usuario en el rol más apropiado de acuerdo a sus características y guiarlo en su proceso de emprendimiento. En esta tesis, se presenta la arquitectura del sistema basado en conocimiento y la construcción de cada uno de sus componentes, partiendo del diseño de la base de datos y de la construcción de la base de conocimientos para posteriormente generar los módulos de clasificación y asesoramiento. Para la base de conocimiento se utilizó la técnica de entrevistas cuyo resultado fué un cuestionario con 21 preguntas. Para la construcción del módulo clasificador se parte de la base de conocimientos y se refina empleando el algoritmo C4.5 de minería de datos, el cual se conoce como J48 en la herramienta WEKA y que generó un árbol de decisión de 39 ramas. Permitiendo reducir de 21 preguntas a máximo 6. El modelo generado logra clasificar al 93.5% de los alumnos con éxito. El módulo de asesoramiento fue desarrollado únicamente para el rol del innovador, éste muestra las herramientas necesarias para que el alumno desarrolle su proyecto. Con la metodología utilizada fué posible construir el sistema basado en conocimiento para el ecosistema del emprendimiento y realizar una prueba de concepto del mismo

Listening with Humility

Presented in 2017 at the Internationalizing Christian Higher Education conference of the International Association for the Promotion of Christian Higher Education (IAPCHE) at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, this paper extends the results presented in the author’s 2016 paper, “Culturally and Linguistically Humble: A Preparation for Living Abroad.” Taking the virtue of humility and integrating that into the training for Northwestern College students going abroad for a semester, the author’s new paper both establishes how reflecting on humility has helped students to engage cross-culturally and also links humility with the conference theme of “listening to learn; learning to listen.

Culturally and Linguistically Humble: A Preparation for Living Abroad

Presented in 2016 at Baekseok University in Cheonan City, South Korea at the 8th international conference of the International Association for the Promotion of Christian Higher Education (IAPCHE), this paper lays out the rationale for the approach taken in Northwestern College’s required preparations for students studying abroad. Elements in the preparation include getting students to identify influences on them of their home culture; to talk about their motivations and goals for studying abroad; to engage with Duane Elmer’s Cross-Cultural Connections and David Smith’s Learning from the Stranger; and perhaps most importantly, to engage with E. Hockett, L. Samek, and S. Headley’s “Cultural Humility: A Framework for Local and Global Engagement,” ICCTE Journal 8:1 (2013)

There is Virtue and Variation in the Expression of Politeness

This paper combines two conference presentations of 2019: “The Virtuous Politeness” at the 29th Christian Association of World Languages (CAWL) Conference at Baylor University and “When One Size Does Not Fit All: Teaching Variation in the Use of Politeness” at the Kuyers/International Network for Christian Higher Education (INCHE) Conference at Calvin University. In light of studies of politeness as a social practice and a virtue, the author conducted a small survey of adults at institutions of higher education in and around two places: Orange City, Iowa, USA and Bahía Blanca, Argentina. The survey results not only reinforce already-existing evidence that politeness is present in everyday life, affecting the way we relate to others, it is also situational and culturally dependent. Politeness is applied and interpreted according to norms and conventions that vary not only between English- and Spanish-speaking cultures but even within the Spanish-speaking world. Gonzalez concludes that it is important to offer United States students of the Spanish language a wider view of politeness that will better prepare them for encountering diverse forms and expressions that could be interpreted as polite or impolite when studying or living abroad

The Effects of Congestive Heart Failure on Quality of Life: As Evaluated by the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire

Abstract Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a chronic disease that impairs the quality of life (QoL) of patients and is associated with both high hospital readmission rates and healthcare resource utilization such as emergency services. This study proposed use a student led transitional care program in providing home care to NYHA functional class II and III CHF patients. It evaluated the impact of the program on their quality of life as measured by the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire© (MLWHFQ), the percentage of patients requiring readmission to the hospital within 30 days of initial hospitalization, and healthcare utilization. Thirty-six patients completed the MLWHFQ prior to and post enrollment to a 14-week transitional care program. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the data obtained using the MLWHFQ. A paired samples t-test was used to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between the means of the the pre- and post- MLWHFQ assessments. No statistically significant difference was noted between the total MLWHFQ scores pre- and post-survey t (34) = 1.554, p= .13. Subscale evaluation on the physical and emotional dimensions were also analyzed with not statistical significance. Examination of pre- and post-mean scores however did demonstrate a decrease from pre- to post survey assessments for the total MLWHFQ (pre- M= 45, SE +4.9; post- M= 39, SE +4.6) values as well as the physical (pre- M= 19.86, SE +1.97; M= 17.31, SE +1.93) and emotional dimensions (pre- M = 7.74, SE +1.46; post- M =6.63, SE + .947) of perceived quality of life. Examination of individual questions reveal that perceptions of participants’ quality of life decreased in terms of their ability to perform activities such as household chores, working in the yard, and participating in recreational activities and hobbies. Additionally, they had more difficulty with concentration and memory, feeling out of control which impacted their socialization with family and friends. This led to a higher degree of perceived social isolation. Of the participants, 9.5% utilized acute care services (emergency department) while 4.7% required readmission to the hospital within 30 days following their initial hospitalization. The lower rates for healthcare utilization may have been in part due to the student led transitional care program monitoring patients on a weekly basis allowing the cardiac advanced nurse practitioner to respond and address clinical changes in a timely manner

Unsupervised classification of remote sensing images combining Self Organizing Maps and segmentation techniques

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.This study aimed a procedure of unsupervised classification for remote sensing images based on a combination of Self-Organizing maps (SOM) and segmentation. The integration is conceived first obtaining clusters of the spectral behavior of the satellite image using Self-Organizing Maps. As visualization technique for the SOM is used the U-matrix. Subsequently is used seeded region growing segmentation technique to obtain a delimitation of the clusters in the data. Finally, from the regions of neurons in the U-matrix are deduced the clusters in the original pixels of the image. To evaluate the proposed methodology it was considered a subset of a satellite image as use case. The results were measured through accuracy assessment of the case and comparing definition of the obtained clusters against each technique separately. Cramers'V was used to evaluate the association between clustering obtained each method separately and reference data for the specific use case

Proposal of an experience feedback approach to improve collaboration in industrial processes

In the current changing market-place which is characterized by openness, competitiveness and globalization, today's organizations must continuously evolve and improve. As a result of thesemarket conditions, organizations are coerced to join industrial networks to maintain their business efficiency. In order to achieve this endeavor, effective collaboration between organizations plays a central role to carry out activities in industrial processes and it is essential to accomplish an overall improvement of any process. Furthermore, each organization which participates in industrial networks is, at the same time, an organizational network of actors who work for it. Therefore, collaboration remains a key factor but this time seen from the interactions between actors involvedin industrial processes. Hence, collaboration has become one of the relevant areas of performance measurement. Then, a need arises to define a methodology for collaboration characterization between organizations based on the interactions between actors. Also, the experience reuse principles are an interesting approach to define future collaborations based on past experiences. In this regard, two global objectives are defined in our work: 1. How to characterize collaboration during an industrial process or project taking into consideration organizations and actors who work for them? 2. How to define and improve future collaborations based on knowledge of past experiences? This thesis work describes a proposition of an approach of capitalization and reuse of experiences in order to facilitate the definition of future collaborations taking into account the performance and collaboration dimensions of past experiences. This work provides a novel approach which lies in the fact that we explicitly integrate an experience reuse approach in order to define future collaborations at an organizations level and actors level. The main contributions of this Ph.D. thesis are: • The definition of a collaboration model for experience collaboration characterization. The proposed collaboration model formalizes the key elements of an industrial process such as organizations, contracts, commitments, requirements, activities, actors and their interactions. This formalization facilitates the experience capitalization for its future reuse.• A collaboration evaluation methodology for experience capitalization in order to analyze thecollaboration and the performance throughout an industrial process. The analysis of thecollaboration is based on a standard evaluation in the interest of an accurate comparison ofcollaboration and performance evaluation between organizations. As with the previous item, thestandard evaluation of collaboration and performance allows the experience capitalization and itsfuture reuse.• An experience reuse system that allows defining the best collaboration experiences betweenorganizations and actors concerning partial information of the new experienc

READING HABITS OF STUDENTS OF THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, ECUADOR, AND ITS EFFECTS ON THEIR PERFORMANCE IN READING IN THE TARGET LANGUAGE

The study aims to assess the impact of students' reading habits in their first language (L1) on their English acquisition at the National University of Education. It found that students who do not frequently read in their first language negatively influence their second language reading habits, resulting in a lack of vocabulary acquisition and fundamental grammatical structure management. As English professors, we were concerned about the underperformance in reading abilities of our students. This was further evidenced by the poor scores of learners who took the B1 test, particularly in the reading section. As a result, we began investigating the reading habits of students and the possible factors that contribute to their low reading proficiency. In the study, we administered a survey and a diagnostic test to 70 students from level five and 29 students from level six. The results showed that an extensive number of students read scarcely. A considerable number of students did not read at all. Only a minority of the assessed students read routinely. We compared the results from the survey with the data collected by the diagnostic test. We observed that students who barely read in L1 did not reach a high-performance score in their diagnostic. Furthermore, we concluded that reading in their mother tongue influences their reading performance in the target language. Therefore, it is necessary to motivate students to enhance their reading skills in the first and second language to acquire the vocabulary and grammar knowledge needed to improve their level of English.  Article visualizations

Mixed-Status Immigrant Families Disproportionately Experienced Material Hardships in 2021

Mixed-status immigrant families, where one or more members are undocumented and all other members are either US citizens or have lawful immigration status, are in a difficult predicament. Undocumented family members often have limited economic opportunities because they lack work authorization, are restricted from accessing federal safety net programs, and are under constant threat of immigration enforcement. Immigrant families may fear enrolling their children in safety net programs, even when children may be eligible, because of immigration-related concerns. Yet, limited data on the undocumented population in the US has made it difficult to assess the level of material hardships mixed-status families experience.We examine data from the Urban Institute's December 2021 Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey, a nationally representative survey of adults ages 18 to 64, to assess material hardships in the previous year among adults in mixed-status families, adults in families with permanent residents, adults in families with naturalized citizens, and adults in all-US-born families.Our findings show the following:Adults in mixed-status families were more likely than adults in families with other immigration statuses and adults in all-US-born families to report material hardships. Nearly half of adults in mixed-status families reported food insecurity, a share much higher than that for adults in other families.Adults in mixed-status families were much more likely than those in other families to have a child in the family and to have low family incomes.Our findings support previous research on how immigration policies designed to limit access to employment and safety net supports for undocumented individuals can affect other members of their family. If a goal of policymakers is to reduce hardships among low-income families and improve equitable access to safety net programs and economic opportunity, then the unique circumstances of mixed-status families, which can include members eligible for these programs, must be considered