Supermarkets, Farm Assets, and Technology Choices: a Duration Analysis of Horticultural Growers in Nicaragua

Supermarkets, Nicaragua, Horticulture, Small Farmers, Agribusiness, Community/Rural/Urban Development, International Development,

Context-aware Assessment Using QR-codes

In this paper we present the implementation of a general mechanism to deliver tests based on mobile devices and matrix codes. The system is an extension of Siette, and has not been specifically developed for any subject matter. To evaluate the performance of the system and show some of its capabilities, we have developed a test for a second-year college course on Botany at the School of Forestry Engineering. Students were equipped with iPads and took an outdoor test on plant species identification. All students were able to take and complete the test in a reasonable time. Opinions expressed anonymously by the students in a survey about the usability of the system and the usefulness of the test were very favorable. We think that the application presented in this paper can broaden the applicability of automatic assessment techniques.The presentation of this work has been co-founded by the Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Deletions in the neuraminidase stalk region of H2N2 and H9N2 avian influenza virus subtypes do not affect postinfluenza secondary bacterial pneumonia

We investigated the synergism between influenza virus and Streptococcus pneumoniae, particularly the role of deletions in the stalk region of the neuraminidase (NA) of H2N2 and H9N2 avian influenza viruses. Deletions in the NA stalk (ΔNA) had no effect on NA activity or on the adherence of S. pneumoniae to virus-infected human alveolar epithelial (A549) and mouse lung adenoma (LA-4) cells, although it delayed virus elution from turkey red blood cells. Sequential S. pneumoniae infection of mice previously inoculated with isogenic recombinant H2N2 and H9N2 influenza viruses displayed severe pneumonia, elevated levels of intrapulmonary proinflammatory responses, and death. No differences between the WT and ΔNA mutant viruses were detected with respect to effects on postinfluenza pneumococcal pneumonia as measured by bacterial growth, lung inflammation, morbidity, mortality, and cytokine/chemokine concentrations. Differences were observed, however, in influenza virus-infected mice that were treated with oseltamivir prior to a challenge with S. pneumoniae. Under these circumstances, mice infected with ΔNA viruses were associated with a better prognosis following a secondary bacterial challenge. These data suggest that the H2N2 and H9N2 subtypes of avian influenza A viruses can contribute to secondary bacterial pneumonia and deletions in the NA stalk may modulate its outcome in the context of antiviral therapy. © 2012, American Society for Microbiology.Fil: Chockalingam, Ashok K.. University of Maryland; Estados UnidosFil: Hickman, Danielle. University of Maryland; Estados UnidosFil: Pena, Lindomar. University of Maryland; Estados UnidosFil: Ye, Jianqiang. University of Maryland; Estados UnidosFil: Ferrero, Andrea. University of Maryland; Estados UnidosFil: Echenique, Jose Ricardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Bioquímica Clínica e Inmunología; ArgentinaFil: Chen, Hongjun. University of Maryland; Estados UnidosFil: Sutton, Troy. University of Maryland; Estados UnidosFil: Perez, Daniel R.. University of Maryland; Estados Unido

Implementing Nature-based Solutions and Green Infrastructure for Cities, Citizens and Rivers - The SEE-URBAN-WATER Project

Cities and their rivers are undergoing significant transformations owing to the impact of multiples challenges at a time such as rapid population growth, infrastructure development, and climate change. The consequences are evident in increased flood risks, groundwater pollution, accelerated soil erosion, drinking water scarcity, green space depletion, and biodiversity loss. In light of this, interest in novel concepts such as Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) is growing, extending beyond academia to influence micro-, meso-, and macro-urban scales. Motivated by the potential of NbS to deliver social, ecological, and societal benefits, the SEE-URBAN-WATER (SUW) research group aimed to provide a robust knowledge and methodological basis for achieving socio-ecological transformation through the inter- and transdisciplinary planning, design, and implementation of NbS and Green Infrastructures in highly urbanized areas susceptible to environmental and climate risks. From 2018 to 2023, SUW, funded within the framework of the Research for Sustainability program (known by its German acronym FONA) by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (abbreviated to BMBF in German), produced numerous master’s and doctoral theses, methodological frameworks, scientific publications, and technical guidelines. Nevertheless, this book goes beyond being a mere compendium of these outcomes; it clearly illustrates the systematic inter- and transdisciplinary evolution and interconnection of ideas for building more socially and environmentally resilient cities

DECISION-MAKING BASED ON AN ANALYSIS OF ALTERNATIVES MEXICO AND USA IN THE ELECTION PROCESS FOR PATENTING

This article presents the decision-making based on, an analysis to select which is best option patent an invention. The selected countries were Mexico and United States. It is important to know the different processes that each country has to grant a patent, their costs, whether to patent in one country or more, the procedure for international protection. Something important to note is that many people do not have the information necessary to protect their inventions. The process and the time for which a patent assigned are too long or tedious for people. It is important to promote technological development of the country, but you have to identify what the needs are, involve society, private sector, and government

DECISION-MAKING BASED ON AN ANALYSIS OF ALTERNATIVES MEXICO AND USA IN THE ELECTION PROCESS FOR PATENTING

This article presents the decision-making based on, an analysis to select which is best option patent an invention. The selected countries were Mexico and United States. It is important to know the different processes that each country has to grant a patent, their costs, whether to patent in one country or more, the procedure for international protection. Something important to note is that many people do not have the information necessary to protect their inventions. The process and the time for which a patent assigned are too long or tedious for people. It is important to promote technological development of the country, but you have to identify what the needs are, involve society, private sector, and government

Robust and Cooperative Image-Based Visual Servoing System Using a Redundant Architecture

The reliability and robustness of image-based visual servoing systems is still unsolved by the moment. In order to address this issue, a redundant and cooperative 2D visual servoing system based on the information provided by two cameras in eye-in-hand/eye-to-hand configurations is proposed. Its control law has been defined to assure that the whole system is stable if each subsystem is stable and to allow avoiding typical problems of image-based visual servoing systems like task singularities, features extraction errors, disappearance of image features, local minima, etc. Experimental results with an industrial robot manipulator based on Schunk modular motors to demonstrate the stability, performance and robustness of the proposed system are presented

Changes in food access by mestizo communities associated with deforestation and agrobiodiversity loss in Ucayali, Peruvian Amazon

Few longitudinal studies link agricultural biodiversity, land use and food access in rural landscapes. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that, in a context of economic change, cash crop expansion is associated with deforestation, reduced agrobiodiversity and changes in food access. For this purpose, we analysed data collected from the same 53 upland and floodplain mestizo households in Ucayali, Peru, in 2000 and 2015. We found an emerging transition towards less diversified food access coupled with loss of forest cover and reduced agricultural biodiversity. In 2015, diets appeared to rely on fewer food groups, fewer food items, and on products increasingly purchased in the market compared to 2000. Wild fruits and plants were mentioned, but rarely consumed. Agricultural production systems became more specialised with a shift towards commercial crops. Peak deforestation years in the 15-year period appeared linked with incentives for agricultural expansion. Our results suggest an overall trend from diversified productive and “extractive” systems and more diverse food access, towards specialized productive systems, with less diverse food access and stronger market orientation (both in production and consumption). The assumption in the food and agricultural sciences that increased income and market-orientation is linked to improved food security, is challenged by our integrated analyses of food access, agrobiodiversity, land use and forest cover. Our results highlight the importance of longitudinal, multidimensional, systemic analyses, with major implications for land use, food and health policies. The potential risks of parallel homogenisation of diets and agricultural production systems require interdisciplinary research and policies that promote integrated landscape approaches for sustainable and inclusive food systems

Chartered Trawling on the Brazilian Slope

Commercial trawling on the Atlantic slope areas off Brazil intensified in the late 1990’s owing to the expansion of coastal trawling areas and the operations of a chartered foreign fleet. Between 2000 and 2003, 59 fishing trips conducted by 10 chartered trawlers were intensely monitored by observers and satellite vessel monitoring systems, totaling 9,069 tows and 30,085.2 trawling hours. Fishing operations occurred in northern, northeastern, southeastern, and southern sectors of the Brazilian coast in 60–1,173 m depths. Total retained and processed catch were 8,074.6 t and 6,479.8 t, respectively. Argentine hake, Merluccius hubbsi; and Argentine shortfin squid, Illex argentinus, were the primary species taken contributing to 41.1% and 28.6% of the overall catch, respectively. The silver John dory, Zenopsis conchifera; monkfish, Lophius gastrophysus; Brazilian codling, Urophycis mystacea; and the black grouper, Epinephelus nigritus, composed 23% of total processed catch, and the remaining 7.2% was composed of deep-sea shrimps (family Aristeidae) and other teleosts and elasmobranches. The occupation of slope areas included an early exploratory phase, followed by directed phases of the upper slope (300–500 m), aiming principally at the Argentine hake, and the lower slope (>700 m), targeting valuable concentrations of deep-sea aristeid shrimps. The role of chartering for slope trawling development was critically addressed. We conclude that chartered vessels were efficient explorers and were particularly important in areas not available to the technologically limited national fleet. Because the charters were market-oriented and had elevated profit demands, however, those vessels quickly turned from exploration to exploitation and competed with national trawlers in shallower areas and produced significant impacts on Brazil’s modest deep-sea resources

Energy recovery in wastewater treatment systems through hydraulic micro-machinery. Case study

[EN] The wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) treat the water from domestic and industrial use so that its discharge, once it passes through them, is harmless to the environment. However, large amounts of energy are necessary to carry out this process. Therefore, energy and process optimization are a key issue within these type of plant. One of the possibilities within the WWTPs is the recovery of hydraulic energy. This paper presents alternatives for the recovery of hydraulic energy, through the use of hydraulic micro-machinery such as PATs or hydrostatic pressure wheels. This type of machinery is capable of recovering a part of that energy that until now it was not possible to recover, in a more economical way and assuming an improvement for plants that have the possibility of installing it. In the here described case study, savings of over 4% were achieved with periods of return on investment of less than 5 years.Llácer Iglesias, RM.; Perez Diaz, JM.; Satorre Aznar, JR.; López Jiménez, PA.; Pérez Sánchez, M. (2020). Energy recovery in wastewater treatment systems through hydraulic micro-machinery. Case study. Journal of Applied Research in Technology & Engineering. 1(1):15-21. https://doi.org/10.4995/jarte.2020.13766OJS15211