Of Art y piernas en el MOMA / De arte & legs at MOMA

Buda midió el Universo dando siete pasos en cada dirección del espacio.Todo movimiento comienza con el pie y acaba con él.Por eso el ser humano deja su huella en el camino que recorre ya sea buena o mala.Este ensayo visual, Of art y piernas en el MOMA, es el resultado de esta reflexión sobre dónde está lo trascendente.Me “estudié” las salas del MOMA durante días (2011), y entre muchas cosas también quedó esto:Los pasos los dí. Cansado reposé y vi mis pies rojos. El MOMA estaba lleno de gente...bueno, mejor dicho, de piernas, piernas de todos los tipos, grandes, gordas, pequeñas, quebradas, infantiles…, con dolor de agujas entre las uñas y la carne. Despertóme un olor ácido, de azufre, de amoniaco, a naftalina…, efectivamente estaba en el averno, mejor dicho, seguía allí. Me levanté y como BUDA caminé siete pasos en el espacio y medí el Universo en el suelo…después a casa (en la 10 th con la 43) y me bebí toda la cerveza que pude.En el artículo se recogen mis imágenes acompañadas de un breve texto o poema de diversas personas con las que la obra ha interaccionado.De arte & legs at MOMAThe Buddha took seven steps in each of the four cardinal directions in order to measure the Universe. All movement begins and finishes with the foot. So humans leave their mark on the road that they run. This visual essay, De arte & legs at MOMA, is the result of this reflection on where is it the transcendent. I was “studying” the halls of MOMA for days (2011), and among many things was also this: The steps I took. Tired I rested my feet and saw them in red. The MOMA was full of people ... well, rather, of legs, legs of all types, big, fat, small, broken, children ... with needles pain between nail and flesh. I felt an acid odor, sulfur, ammonia, mothballs ... indeed I was in the underworld, rather, was still there. I got up and took seven steps as BUDDHA, in each of the four cardinal directions in order to measure the Universe on the floor ... then home (in the 10th Av. with the 43 st) and I drank all the beer I could. In the article we can see my images beside a short text or poem from people that has interacted with the work

Considerations on Barriers to Effective E-learning toward Accessible Virtual Campuses

Nowadays, the implementation of virtual campuses is a reality, both in academic settings and in the workplace. However, there are several challenges associated with the implementation of effective learning outcomes via e-learning. In this chapter in particular, the use of e-learning to reach students with disabilities and the barriers that they may have will be presented. In this sense, e-learning solutions adopted by several institutions are encouraged to validate and promote accessibility in a virtual campus. A large myriad of research related to accessibility in distance education systems is available in literature, and the most relevant studies and standards are presented in this chapter as a starting point for education institutions looking at improving the accessibility in their own virtual campuses. This work is intended to be relevant both to teachers and lecturers who use e-learning for their courses, and to those involved in the design, setup, and maintenance of e-learning systems, whether from a pedagogical or technical perspective to take into account the accessibility for students with disabilities. This work will explore on the accessibility of the basic stone of the e-learning process, the learning objects. An analysis of the IMS AfA v3.0 specification will be presented as a starting point to develop an accessible and adaptable online course, based on the student’s preferences, within an accessible virtual campus

Epidemiologia e estratégias para o manejo químico do míldio-pulverulento em mangueira

The objective of this work was to evaluate phytosanitary strategies for the chemical control of powdery mildew (Oidium mangiferae) in mango, based on the alternation of active ingredients with different modes and sites of action, and to determine the environmental and epidemiological conditions that favor the development of the disease. The experiment was conducted in Guerrero, México, in commercial orchards, within a program for the development of fungicide spraying strategies. Epidemic curves were used on temporal analyses of the disease for: incidence; area under disease progression curve (AUDPC); severity; and conidial seasonality and its relationships with meteorological parameters. The disease was better controlled with the application of systemic fungicide followed by contact fungicide with multisite activity. The first symptoms appeared 30 days after the issuance of shoots, and the most susceptible phenological (critical) stages were at full bloom and at the onset of fruit with 8–15 mm. Optimum conditions for the development of powdery mildew, which maximizes the density of airborne spores, are temperatures higher than 30°C and relative humidity over 90%.O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar estratégias fitossanitárias para o controle químico do míldio-da-mangueira (Oidium mangiferae), baseadas na alternação de princípios ativos com diferentes modos e sítios de ação, e determinar as condições ambientais e epidemiológicas que favorecem o desenvolvimento da doença. O experimento foi realizado em Guerrero, México, em pomares comerciais, no âmbito de um programa para o desenvolvimento de estratégias de pulverização com fungicida. Curvas epidêmicas foram utilizadas em análises temporais da doença quanto à: incidência; área abaixo da curva de progresso da doença (AACPD); severidade; e sazonalidade dos conídios e sua relação com parâmetros meteorológicos. A doença foi mais bem controlada com a aplicação de fungicida sistêmico seguido de fungicida de contato, com atividade multissítio. Os primeiros sintomas apareceram 30 dias após a emissão dos brotos, e os estádios fenológicos mais sensíveis (críticos) foram o de floração completa e o de frutos com 8–15 mm. As condições ótimas para o desenvolvimento do oídio, que maximizam a densidade de esporos no ar, são temperatura acima de 30°C e umidade relativa superior a 90%

Low Ciprofloxacin concentrations select Multidrug-Resistant Mutants overproducing efflux pumps in clinical isolates of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa

Low antibiotic concentrations present in natural environments are a severe and often neglected threat to public health. Even if they are present below their MICs, they may select for antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Notably, the minimal subinhibitory concentrations that select resistant bacteria, and define the respective sub-MIC selective windows, differ between antibiotics. The establishment of these selective concentrations is needed for risk-assessment studies regarding the presence of antibiotics in different habitats. Using short-term evolution experiments in a set of 12 Pseudomonas aeruginosa clinical isolates (including high-risk clones with ubiquitous distribution), we have determined that ciprofloxacin sub-MIC selective windows are strain specific and resistome dependent. Nonetheless, in all cases, clinically relevant multidrug-resistant (MDR) mutants emerged upon exposure to low ciprofloxacin concentrations, with these concentrations being below the levels reported in ciprofloxacin-polluted natural habitats where P. aeruginosa can be present. This feature expands the conditions and habitats where clinically relevant quinolone-resistant mutants can emerge. In addition, we established the lowest concentration threshold beyond which P. aeruginosa, regardless of the strain, becomes resistant to ciprofloxacin. Three days of exposure under this sub-MIC "risk concentration" led to the selection of MDR mutants that displayed resistance mechanisms usually ascribed to high selective pressures, i.e., the overproduction of the efflux pumps MexCD-OprJ and MexEF-OprN. From a One-Health viewpoint, these data stress the transcendent role of low drug concentrations, which can be encountered in natural ecosystems, in aggravating the antibiotic resistance problem, especially when it comes to pathogens of environmental origin. IMPORTANCE It has been established that antibiotic concentrations below MICs can select antibiotic-resistant pathogens, a feature of relevance for analyzing the role of nonclinical ecosystems in antibiotic resistance evolution. The range of concentrations where this selection occurs defines the sub-MIC selective window, whose width depends on the antibiotic. Herein, we have determined the ciprofloxacin sub-MIC selective windows of a set of Pseudomonas aeruginosa clinical isolates (including high-risk clones with worldwide distribution) and established the lowest concentration threshold, notably an amount reported to be present in natural ecosystems, beyond which this pathogen acquires resistance. Importantly, our results show that this ciprofloxacin sub-MIC selects for multidrug-resistant mutants overproducing clinically relevant efflux pumps. From a One-Health angle, this information supports that low antimicrobial concentrations, present in natural environments, may have a relevant role in worsening the antibiotic resistance crisis, particularly regarding pathogens with environmental niches, such as P. aeruginosa. It has been established that antibiotic concentrations below MICs can select antibiotic-resistant pathogens, a feature of relevance for analyzing the role of nonclinical ecosystems in antibiotic resistance evolution. The range of concentrations where this selection occurs defines the sub-MIC selective window, whose width depends on the antibiotic

Evaluation of toxic effects of several carboxylic acids on bacterial growth by toxicodynamic modelling

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Effects of organic acids on microbial fermentation are commonly tested in investigations about metabolic behaviour of bacteria. However, they typically provide only descriptive information without modelling the influence of acid concentrations on bacterial kinetics.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We developed and applied a mathematical model (secondary model) to capture the toxicological effects of those chemicals on kinetic parameters that define the growth of bacteria in batch cultures. Thus, dose-response kinetics were performed with different bacteria (<it>Leuconostoc mesenteroides</it>, <it>Carnobacterium pisicola</it>, <it>Escherichia coli</it>, <it>Bacillus subtilis </it>and <it>Listonella anguillarum</it>) exposed at increasing concentrations of individual carboxylic acids (formic, acetic, propionic, butyric and lactic). In all bioassays the acids affected the maximum bacterial load (<it>X_m</it>) and the maximum growth rate (<it>v_m</it>) but only in specific cases the lag phase (λ) was modified. Significance of the parameters was always high and in all fermentations the toxicodynamic equation was statistically consistent and had good predictability. The differences between D and L-lactic acid effects were significant for the growth of <it>E. coli</it>, <it>L. mesenteroides </it>and <it>C. piscicola</it>. In addition, a global parameter (<it>EC</it>_50,τ) was used to compare toxic effects and provided a realistic characterization of antimicrobial agents using a single value.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The effect of several organic acids on the growth of different bacteria was accurately studied and perfectly characterized by a bivariate equation which combines the basis of dose-response theory with microbial growth kinetics (secondary model). The toxicity of carboxylic acids was lower with the increase of the molecular weight of these chemicals.</p

Incidence of parental support and pressure on their children’s motivational processes towards sport practice regarding gender

Análisis basado en la autodeterminación y en la teoría de ecuaciones estructurales (SEM) con el objetivo de examinar cómo el apoyo de los padres/presión podría influir en procesos motivacionales del deporte durante la infancia. También se analizaron los modelos de funcionamiento de las diferencias en cuanto al sexo. El tamaño de la muestra fue de 321 niños, cuyas edades van de los 10 a 16 años de edad, que fueron atletas de Extremadura; y 321 padres (incluido sólo el padre o la madre más involucradas con el deporte de su hijo o hija). 175 participantes eran hombres y 146 eran mujeres del individuo (n = 130), y los deportes de equipo (n=191). Se realizó un cuestionario para evaluar la percepción parental de apoyo/presión y otro cuestionario para medir la satisfacción de necesidades psicológicas, el tipo de motivación y disfrute/aburrimiento mostrado por sus hijos hacia la práctica deportiva. Los resultados revelaron que la presión de los padres predijo negativamente la satisfacción de las necesidades psicológicas. También apareció como un fuerte predictor positivo de motivación intrínseca y predictor negativo de motivación. Además, la motivación intrínseca emergió como predictor positivo de goce y como un predictor negativo de aburrimiento. Además, los resultados mostraron que hubo diferencias medias por sexo: los atletas masculinos perciben una mayor presión de los padres. Por lo tanto, es necesario disminuir la presión de los padres respecto de sus hijos en el deporte, con el objetivo de hacer que el deporte sea más motivador, de disfrute y generador de sensaciones positivas.Grounded in Self-Determination Theory, structural equation modeling (SEM) with the aim of examining how parental support/pressure could influence their children´s motivational processes in sport was conducted, as well as the models´ differences in operability regarding gender. The sample size was 321 children ranging in age from 10 to 16 years old who were athletes from Extremadura, and 321 parents (included only the father or mother more involved with the sport of his or her child). 175 participants were male and 146 were female from individual (n = 130), and team sports (n=191). A questionnaire was conducted to assess parental perception of support/pressure and another questionnaire was conducted to measure satisfaction of basic psychological needs, type of motivation and enjoyment/boredom showed by their children towards sport practice. Results revealed that parental pressure negatively predicted satisfaction of the basic psychological needs. It also emerged as a strong positive predictor of intrinsic motivation and negative predictor of amotivation. Moreover, intrinsic motivation emerged as positive predictor of enjoyment and a negative predictor of boredom, whereas amotivation positively predicted boredom and negatively predicted enjoyment. Furthermore, results showed there were mean differences by gender: male athletes perceived greater parental pressure. Hence, it is necessary to decrease parental pressure towards their children in sport, with the aim of making them more motivated and enjoy, promoting positive consequences.peerReviewe

Hyperspectral data processing algorithm combining principal component analysis and K nearest neighbours

A processing algorithm to classify hyperspectral images from an imaging spectroscopic sensor is investigated in this paper. In this research two approaches are followed. First, the feasibility of an analysis scheme consisting of spectral feature extraction and classification is demonstrated. Principal component analysis (PCA) is used to perform data dimensionality reduction while the spectral interpretation algorithm for classification is the K nearest neighbour (KNN). The performance of the KNN method, in terms of accuracy and classification time, is determined as a function of the compression rate achieved in the PCA pre-processing stage. Potential applications of these hyperspectral sensors for foreign object detection in industrial scenarios are enormous, for example in raw material quality control. KNN classifier provides an enormous improvement in this particular case, since as no training is required, new products can be added in any time. To reduce the high computational load of the KNN classifier, a generalization of the binary tree employed in sorting and searching, kd-tree , has been implemented in a second approach. Finally, the performance of both strategies, with or without the inclusion of the kd-tree, has been successfully tested and their properties compared in the raw material quality control of the tobacco industry

Fine-grained parallelization of fitness functions in bioinformatics optimization problems: gene selection for cancer classification and biclustering of gene expression data

ANTECEDENTES: las metaheurísticas se utilizan ampliamente para resolver grandes problemas de optimización combinatoria en bioinformática debido al enorme conjunto de posibles soluciones. Dos problemas representativos son la selección de genes para la clasificación del cáncer y el agrupamiento de los datos de expresión génica. En la mayoría de los casos, estas metaheurísticas, así como otras técnicas no lineales, aplican una función de adecuación a cada solución posible con una población de tamaño limitado, y ese paso involucra latencias más altas que otras partes de los algoritmos, lo cual es la razón por la cual el tiempo de ejecución de las aplicaciones dependerá principalmente del tiempo de ejecución de la función de aptitud. Además, es habitual encontrar formulaciones aritméticas de punto flotante para las funciones de fitness. De esta manera, una paralelización cuidadosa de estas funciones utilizando la tecnología de hardware reconfigurable acelerará el cálculo, especialmente si se aplican en paralelo a varias soluciones de la población. RESULTADOS: una paralelización de grano fino de dos funciones de aptitud de punto flotante de diferentes complejidades y características involucradas en el biclustering de los datos de expresión génica y la selección de genes para la clasificación del cáncer permitió obtener mayores aceleraciones y cómputos de potencia reducida con respecto a los microprocesadores habituales. CONCLUSIONES: Los resultados muestran mejores rendimientos utilizando tecnología de hardware reconfigurable en lugar de los microprocesadores habituales, en términos de tiempo de consumo y consumo de energía, no solo debido a la paralelización de las operaciones aritméticas, sino también gracias a la evaluación de aptitud concurrente para varios individuos de la población en La metaheurística. Esta es una buena base para crear soluciones aceleradas y de bajo consumo de energía para escenarios informáticos intensivos.BACKGROUND: Metaheuristics are widely used to solve large combinatorial optimization problems in bioinformatics because of the huge set of possible solutions. Two representative problems are gene selection for cancer classification and biclustering of gene expression data. In most cases, these metaheuristics, as well as other non-linear techniques, apply a fitness function to each possible solution with a size-limited population, and that step involves higher latencies than other parts of the algorithms, which is the reason why the execution time of the applications will mainly depend on the execution time of the fitness function. In addition, it is usual to find floating-point arithmetic formulations for the fitness functions. This way, a careful parallelization of these functions using the reconfigurable hardware technology will accelerate the computation, specially if they are applied in parallel to several solutions of the population. RESULTS: A fine-grained parallelization of two floating-point fitness functions of different complexities and features involved in biclustering of gene expression data and gene selection for cancer classification allowed for obtaining higher speedups and power-reduced computation with regard to usual microprocessors. CONCLUSIONS: The results show better performances using reconfigurable hardware technology instead of usual microprocessors, in computing time and power consumption terms, not only because of the parallelization of the arithmetic operations, but also thanks to the concurrent fitness evaluation for several individuals of the population in the metaheuristic. This is a good basis for building accelerated and low-energy solutions for intensive computing scenarios.• Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad y Fondos FEDER. Contrato TIN2012-30685 (I+D+i) • Gobierno de Extremadura. Ayuda GR15011 para grupos TIC015 • CONICYT/FONDECYT/REGULAR/1160455. Beca para Ricardo Soto Guzmán • CONICYT/FONDECYT/REGULAR/1140897. Beca para Broderick CrawfordpeerReviewe

O uso do GPS nas medições geodésicas de curta distância

Orientador: Jose Bittencourt de AndradeData na capa: 1990Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ParanáResumo: O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar, descrever e aplicar os métodos de posicionamento adequados aos levantamentos geodésicos locais e que se utilizam dos sinais de rádio dos satélites NAVSTAR-GPS. Portanto, os métodos do Intercâmbio de antenas, Cinemático e Pseudo-Cinemático constituem o cerne desta dissertação. Em paralelo, emprega-se o medidor eletrônico de distância CMEDD e o nivelamento geométrico. Uma breve análise dos custos e benefícios provocados pelo emprego da tecnologia GPS nos trabalhos geodésicos, topográficos e de agrimensura, também é apresentada.Abstract: The purpose of the present dissertation is show, describe and apply the positioning methods adequate for local geodetic surveys which to make use of the NAVSTAR-GPS satellites. Hence, the antenna exchange, kinematic and pseudo-kinematic methods constitute the heart of this work. At parallel, employ the electronic distance measurement CEDMD and the geometric levelling. Additionally, the cost/benefit relation proved by use of the GPS tecnology on the geodetics, topographies and rural lands surveys is presented too

Análisis de los antecedentes motivacionales en árbitros de baloncesto y su incidencia en el agotamiento emocional

El objetivo de este estudio fue analizar las relaciones entre losantecedentes motivacionales y su influencia en el burnout en árbitros debaloncesto. Para ello, se han seleccionado 30 árbitros con edades comprendidasentre los 17 y 41 años (M = 24.8; DT  = 5.74). Los resultados revelaron relaciones positivas entre los mediadores de la frustación de las necesidadespsicológicas básicas (autonomía, competencia y relaciones sociales) con ladesmotivación. Lo mismo sucede con el agotamiento emocional que se asociade forma positiva y significativamente con la frustación de autonomía,competencia y relaciones sociales. Además, el mayor predictor del agotamientoemocional fue la desmotivación. Finalmente, los resultados sondiscutidos para mejorar el conocimiento sobre la motivación y el burnou