Effects of IGSS\u27 job aids-assisted Balanced Counseling Algorithms on quality of care and client outcomes

This study identified a need to improve the quality of care at the main maternity hospital of the Social Security Institute (IGSS) in Guatemala. Problems included very short counseling sessions, counseling not focused on clients’ needs, redundancy in the role of physicians and social workers as providers, skewed method mix, and low client return rate for method resupply. The intervention, using Balanced Counseling Algorithms, changed the counseling behavior of physicians and social workers and enhanced the quality of family planning care. The report includes recommendations for continuing these improvements: monitoring provider implementation of the job aids–assisted Balanced Counseling Algorithms, monitoring provider output, adjusting institutional policy and goals to the reality of client preferences, testing reformulated post-choice strategy, and paying particular attention to clients who choose oral contraceptives or condoms

A real-life study of the effectiveness of different pharmacological approaches to the treatment of smoking cessation: re-discussing the predictors of success

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), bupropion, nortriptyline and combination therapy and describe factors associated with treatment success. INTRODUCTION: Clinical trials clearly demonstrate the efficacy of pharmacotherapy in smoking cessation. However, it is only after its use in real-life settings that clinical effectiveness and limitations of a treatment are fully known. METHODS: Patients attended a four-session cognitive-behavioral program and received medicines free of charge. Abstinence from smoking was assessed at each visit. RESULTS: A total of 868 smokers (68.8% women) were included. Their mean age was 49.6 years; the amount smoked was 25 cigarettes/day and the Fagerströ m Score was 6.6. Abstinence rates after 6 months and 1 year were 36.5% and 33.6%. In univariate analysis, male gender, age (>;50), higher number of cigarettes smoked, cardiovascular comorbidities, longer interval from the last cigarette and combined treatment of nortriptyline plus NRT were predictive of abstinence, while neuropsychiatric comorbidities and the answer ''yes'' to the question ''Do you smoke more often during the first hours after waking'' were correlated with failure. In a multivariate model, predictors of abstinence were neuropsychiatric comorbidities, the answer ''yes'' to the question ''Do you smoke more often during the first hours after waking'' and combined treatment of nortriptyline plus NRT. Male gender and a longer period from the last cigarette were correlated with lower abstinence rate. CONCLUSION: Satisfactory success rates were obtained in a teaching hospital. Factors such as age, daily cigarette consumption, number of pack-years and dependency score were not reliable markers of abstinence. The combination nortriptyline+NRT was independently associated with higher abstinence rates

A real‐life study of the effectiveness of different pharmacological approaches to the treatment of smoking cessation: re‐discussing the predictors of success

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), bupropion, nortriptyline and combination therapy and describe factors associated with treatment success. INTRODUCTION: Clinical trials clearly demonstrate the efficacy of pharmacotherapy in smoking cessation. However, it is only after its use in real-life settings that clinical effectiveness and limitations of a treatment are fully known. METHODS: Patients attended a four-session cognitive-behavioral program and received medicines free of charge. Abstinence from smoking was assessed at each visit. RESULTS: A total of 868 smokers (68.8% women) were included. Their mean age was 49.6 years; the amount smoked was 25 cigarettes/day and the Fagerströ m Score was 6.6. Abstinence rates after 6 months and 1 year were 36.5% and 33.6%. In univariate analysis, male gender, age (>50), higher number of cigarettes smoked, cardiovascular comorbidities, longer interval from the last cigarette and combined treatment of nortriptyline plus NRT were predictive of abstinence, while neuropsychiatric comorbidities and the answer ''yes'' to the question ''Do you smoke more often during the first hours after waking'' were correlated with failure. In a multivariate model, predictors of abstinence were neuropsychiatric comorbidities, the answer ''yes'' to the question ''Do you smoke more often during the first hours after waking'' and combined treatment of nortriptyline plus NRT. Male gender and a longer period from the last cigarette were correlated with lower abstinence rate. CONCLUSION: Satisfactory success rates were obtained in a teaching hospital. Factors such as age, daily cigarette consumption, number of pack-years and dependency score were not reliable markers of abstinence. The combination nortriptyline+NRT was independently associated with higher abstinence rates

Fine-tuning of UAV control rules for spraying pesticides on crop fields

The use of pesticides in agriculture is essential to maintain the quality of large-scale production. The spraying of these products by using aircraft speeds up the process and prevents compacting of the soil. However, adverse weather conditions (e.g. the speed and direction of the wind) can impair the effectiveness of the spraying of pesticides in a target crop field. Thus, there is a risk that the pesticide can drift to neighboring crop fields. It is believed that a large amount of all the pesticide used in the world drifts outside of the target crop field and only a small amount is effective in controlling pests. However, with\ud increased precision in the spraying, it is possible to reduce the amount of pesticide used and improve the quality of agricultural products as well as mitigate the risk of environmental damage. With this objective, this paper proposes a methodology based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for the fine-tuning of control rules during the spraying of pesticides in crop fields. This methodology can be employed with speed and efficiency and achieve good results by taking account of the weather conditions reported by a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). In this scenario, the UAV becomes a mobile node of the WSN that is able to make personalized decisions for each crop field. The experiments\ud that were carried out show that the optimization methodology proposed is able to reduce the drift of pesticides by fine-tuning of control rules.FAPESP (processes ID 2012/22550-0)Office of Naval Research Global (No. 62909-14-1-N241)CAPES (Capes Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil)CNPq (Brazilian National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development

Speciation in Behavioral Space for Evolutionary Robotics

International audienceIn Evolutionary Robotics, population-based evolutionary computation is used to design robot neurocontrollers that produce behaviors which allow the robot to fulfill a user-defined task. However, the standard approach is to use canonical evolutionary algorithms, where the search tends to make the evolving population converge towards a single behavioral solution, even if the high-level task could be accomplished by structurally different behaviors. In this work, we present an approach that preserves behavioral diversity within the population in order to produce a diverse set of structurally different behaviors that the robot can use. In order to achieve this, we employ the concept of speciation, where the population is dynamically subdivided into sub-groups, or species, each one characterized by a particular behavioral structure that all individuals within that species share. Speciation is achieved by describing each neurocontroller using a representations that we call a behavior signature, these are descriptors that characterize the traversed path of the robot within the environment. Behavior signatures are coded using character strings, this allows us to compare them using a string similarity measure, and three measures are tested. The proposed behavior-based speciation is compared with canonical evolution and a method that speciates based on network topology. Experimental tests were carried out using two robot tasks (navigation and homing behavior), several training environments, and two different robots (Khepera and Pioneer), both real and simulated. Results indicate that behavior-based speciation increases the diversity of the behaviors based on their structure, without sacrificing performance. Moreover, the evolved controllers exhibit good robustness when the robot is placed within environments that were not used during training. In conclusion, the speciation method presented in this work allows an evolutionary algorithm to produce several robot behaviors that are structurally different but all are able to solve the same robot task

Evaluation of SNP genotyping in alpacas using the bovine HD genotyping beadchip

Alpacas are one of four South American Camelid species living in the highlands of the Andes. Production of alpaca fiber contributes to the economy of the region and the livelihood of many rural families. Fiber quantity and quality are important and in need of a modern breeding program based on genomic selection to accelerate genetic gain. To achieve this is necessary to discover enough molecular markers, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in particular, to provide genome coverage and facilitate genome wide association studies to fiber production characteristics. The aim of this study was to discover alpaca SNPs by genotyping forty alpaca DNA samples using the BovineHD Genotyping Beadchip. Data analysis was performed with GenomeStudio (Illumina) software. Because different filters and thresholds are reported in the literature we investigated the effects of no-call threshold (≥0.05, ≥0.15, and ≥0.25) and call frequency (≥0.9 and =1.0) in identifying positive SNPs. Average GC Scores, calculated as the average of the 10% and 50% GenCall scores for each SNP (≥0.70) and the GenTrain score ≥ 0.25 parameters were applied to all comparisons. SNPs with minor allele frequency (MAF) ≥ 0.05 or ≥ 0.01 were retained. Since detection of SNPs is based on the stable binding of oligonucleotide probes to the target DNA immediately adjacent to the variant nucleotide, all positive SNP flanking sequences showing perfect alignments between the bovine and alpaca genomes for the first 21 or 26 nucleotides flanking the variant nucleotide at either side were selected. Only SNPs localized in one scaffold were assumed unique. Unique SNPs identified in both reference genomes were kept and mapped on the Vicugna_pacos 2.0.2 genome. The effects of the no-call threshold ≥ 0.25, call frequency = 1 and average GC ≥ 0.7 were meaningful and identified 6756 SNPs of which 400 were unique and polymorphic (MAF ≥ 0.01). Assignment to alpaca chromosomes was possible for 292 SNPs. Likewise, 209 SNPs were localized in 202 alpaca gene loci and 29 of these share the same loci with the dromedary. Interestingly, 69 of 400 alpaca SNPs have 100% similarity with dromedary

Metodologia construtivista: dimensionamento e fabricação de um forno tipo mufla de alto desempenho / Constructivist Methodology: Design and manufacture of a high performance muffle furnace

Os tratamentos térmicos realizados em aços são processos fundamentais para obtenção de propriedades específicas no material, uma vez que para obtê-las o aço é aquecido e resfriado sob condições controladas. Para este processo deve-se utilizar um forno de alta temperatura, chamado forno mufla, que possibilita o controle e monitoramento de temperaturas elevadas, que são necessárias para atingir a temperabilidade de cada material.  Tendo em vista o que foi dito anteriormente, o presente trabalho, apresenta os passos para realização do dimensionamento de um forno mufla de baixo custo para tratamento térmico, demonstrando os cálculos necessários para se obter a geometria mais eficiente e materiais mais indicados para a aplicação e o dimensionamento detalhado da espessura das camadas de isolamento térmico e da resistência elétrica, com o intuito de desenvolver um equipamento de alto desempenho, possibilitando estudos científicos e trabalhos acadêmicos nas áreas de termodinâmica e tratamento térmico de materiais.  

Efecto de marcadores genéticos moleculares en genes inducibles por hipoxia de bovinos criollos y Brown Swiss criados en los Andes de Perú

The genomes of 41 bovines of five breeds, existing in the SRA-NCBI database, were used to identify 17 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) which generate non-synonymous mutations in 10 hypoxia-inducible genes. Of this, only three SNPs located in positions c.1081G>C, c.2089G>A and c.2101G>A of exons 7 and 12 of the EPAS1 gene had different allelic frequencies between beef and dairy cattle (p<0.05). Based on the results of the bioinformatic analysis of the genomes, exonic regions of the EPAS1, NOS2, EPO and VEGFA genes were chosen, which were studied in 60 DNA samples from Creole and Brown Swiss cattle raised in the high Andean region (3213-4309 m above sea level). The cattle were grouped by their haemoglobin concentration (Hb) in Brown Swiss with high Hb (BSHbA) (n=13), Brown Swiss with low Hb (BSHbB) (n=11), Creoles with high Hb (CRHbA) (n=13) and Creoles with low Hb (CRHbB) (n=12); in addition, there was a Brown Swiss group with brisket disease (BSMA) (n=11). The generated amplicons were sequenced with the Sanger methodology, identifying 10 SNPs; however, no associations were found between these SNPs and the groups considered. Only one SNP located at the intronic position Cr.19: 19403681T>C of the NOS2 gene had a different frequency between Creole and Brown Swiss cattle (p<0.05). In addition, that SNP was found linked to two others that are in exon 12 of the same gene.Los genomas de 41 bovinos de cinco razas existentes en la base de datos del SRA-NCBI, fueron usados para identificar 17 polimorfismos de nucleótido simple (PNSs), los cuales generan mutaciones no sinónimas en 10 genes inducibles por hipoxia. De ese total, solo tres PNSs ubicados en las posiciones c.1081G>C, c.2089G>A y c.2101G>A de los exones 7 y 12 del gen EPAS1 tuvieron frecuencias alélicas diferentes entre bovinos cárnicos y lecheros (p<0.05). Basados en los resultados del análisis bioinformático de los genomas, se eligieron regiones exónicas de los genes EPAS1, NOS2, EPO y VEGFA, que fueron estudiadas en 60 muestras de ADN de bovinos criollos y Brown Swiss criados en la región altoandina (3213-4309 msnm). Los bovinos fueron agrupados por su concentración de hemoglobina (Hb) en Brown Swiss con Hb alta (BSHbA) (n=13), Brown Swiss con Hb baja (BSHbB) (n=11), criollos con Hb alta (CRHbA) (n=13) y criollos con Hb baja (CRHbB) (n=12); además se tuvo un grupo de Brown Swiss con mal de altura (BSMA) (n=11). Los amplicones generados fueron secuenciados con la metodología Sanger, identificándose 10 PNSs. No se encontraron asociaciones entre estos PNSs y los grupos considerados. Únicamente un PNS ubicado en la posición intrόnica Cr.19: 19403681T>C del gen NOS2 tuvo frecuencia diferente entre bovinos criollos y Brown Swiss (p<0.05); además dicho PNS se encontró ligado a otros dos que están ubicados en el exón 12 del mismo gen

Business Consulting para la empresa Recursos Marítimos Recumar S.A.S

El sector marítimo portuario está pasando por diversos cambios como consecuencia de la problemática mundial sanitaria, en ese escenario muchas empresas buscan la oportunidad de crecimiento. Para ello resulta necesario plantearse estrategias alcanzables y tomar acción a partir de un análisis del entorno. El presente documento tiene como finalidad mostrar el desarrollo de la consultoría de negocios realizada a la empresa colombiana denominada RECUMAR SAS, dedicada a brindar servicios, asesoría y venta de suministros en el sector marítimo portuario de Colombia, Panamá, Ecuador, Perú y Chile. Basados en la información brindada por la compañía, se identificó diversos problemas internos y externos que fueron originados por la ausencia de una ruta estratégica, que permita a la empresa lograr el futuro deseado en este contexto de incertidumbre y complejidad. El desarrollo de la consultoría consistirá en el diseño de una ruta estratégica teniendo como marco de referencia una adaptación del modelo secuencial del proceso estratégico desarrollado por el profesor Fernando D’Alessio, así como los seis pilares de la gestión estratégica y los aspectos estratégicos del entorno VUCA. Logrando de esta manera, proporcionar a la compañía un análisis de la situación actual, la identificación de los principales problemas, visión, misión, objetivos de largo plazo, estrategias y objetivos de corto plazo que permitan que la empresa logre una situación futura deseada.The maritime port sector is going through various changes as a result of the global sanitary problem, in this scenario many companies seek the opportunity for growth. For this, it is necessary to consider achievable strategies and take actions based on analysis of the environment. The purpose of this document is to show the development of the business consulting carried out to the Colombian company called RECUMAR SAS, dedicated to providing services, consulting and supplies in the maritime/port sector of Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Chile. Based on the information provided by the company, various internal and external problems were identified, caused by the absence of a strategic plan, which will allow the company to achieve the desired future in this context of uncertainty and complexity. The development of the consultancy will consist of the design of a strategic route taking as a frame of reference an adaptation of the sequential model of the strategic process developed by Professor Fernando D'Alessio, as well as the six pillars of strategic management and the strategic aspects of the environment VUCA. Achieving in this way, provide the company with an analysis of the current situation, the identification of the main problems, vision, mission, long-term objectives, strategies and short-term objectives that allow the company to achieve a desired future situation