The Work of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch: Evidence from Colombia

We process the main written output of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Colombia covering the period 1988-2004, recording all numerical conflict information and accounts of specific conflict events. We check for internal consistency and against a unique Colombian conflict database. We find that both organizations have substantive problems in their handling of quantitative information. Problems include failre to specify sources, unclear definitions, an erratic reporting template and a distorted portrayal of conflict dynamics. Accounts of individual events are fairly representative and much more useful and accurate than the statistical information. We disprove a common accusation that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch rarely criticize the guerrillas, but do find some evidence of anti-government bias. The quantitative human rights and conflict information produced by these organizations for other countries must be viewed with scepticism along with cross-country and time series human rights data based on Amnesty International reports.

Luminescent and Scintillating Properties of Lanthanum Fluoride Nanocrystals in Response to Gamma/Neutron Irradiation: Codoping with Ce Activator, Yb Wavelength Shifter, and Gd Neutron Captor

A novel concept for detection and spectroscopy of gamma rays, and detection of thermal neutrons based on codoped lanthanum fluoride nanocrystals containing gadolinium is presented.The trends of colloidal synthesis of the mentioned material, LaF3 co-doped with Ce as the activator, Yb as the wavelength-shifter and Gd as the neutron captor, is reported. Nanocrystals of the mentioned material were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), optical absorption, and photoluminescence spectroscopy. Gamma detection and its potential spectroscopy feature have been confirmed. The neutron detection capability has been confirmed by experiments performed using a 252Cf neutron source.Comment: 5 figures, 16 page

Boussinesq Solitons as Propagators of Neural Signals

We  consider  certain  approximation for determining the  equation  of motion  for nerve  signals by  using  the  model  of the  lipid  melting  of membranes.   The  nerve  pulses  are  found  to  display nonlinearity and  dispersion  during  the  melting  transition.  In this  simplified model the  nonlinear equation  early  proposed  by  Heimburg  and  coworkers  transformed to  the  well known  integrable Boussinesq  non linear  equation.   Under  specific values of the  parametric space this  system  shows the  existence  of singular  and  regular  soliton  like structures.   After  their  collisions  the  mutual creation  and annihilation (each other)  of nerve signals along the  nerve,  during  their  propagation, has been observed.Keywords: Boussinesq equation,  singular  solitons,  single neurons,  neural  code

ShinyWYSIWYG: a Shiny What You See Is What You Get editor

For any computer application, having a graphical user interface (GUI) potentially increases its usability and scope. In the case of the R language, one of the most used alternatives is the Shiny [1] library. Shiny is an R package that facilitates the creation of interactive web applications directly from R. However, using Shiny requires a certain level of knowledge of R programming. Looking at CRAN’s Task Views, it is easy to note that the R community brings together a variety of specialists in various fields such as biologists, agronomists, economists, among others. It is therefore crucial that R development tools maximize the level of programmatic simplicity to ease the start of the learning ramp. In order to further facilitate the process of developing a user-friendly GUI, and tackling this learning gap, here we present the ShinyWYSIWYG application. ShinyWYSIWYG is a visual editor that allows the user, using the drag and drop technique, inserting the various fields that Shiny provides as input and output, by selecting the desired size and position for each field. Once the user interface is generated, ShinyWYSIWYG also eases the development of the server logic.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

ShinyWYSIWYG: a Shiny What You See Is What You Get editor

For any computer application, having a graphical user interface (GUI) potentially increases its usability and scope. In the case of the R language, one of the most used alternatives is the Shiny [1] library. Shiny is an R package that facilitates the creation of interactive web applications directly from R. However, using Shiny requires a certain level of knowledge of R programming. Looking at CRAN’s Task Views, it is easy to note that the R community brings together a variety of specialists in various fields such as biologists, agronomists, economists, among others. It is therefore crucial that R development tools maximize the level of programmatic simplicity to ease the start of the learning ramp. In order to further facilitate the process of developing a user-friendly GUI, and tackling this learning gap, here we present the ShinyWYSIWYG application. ShinyWYSIWYG is a visual editor that allows the user, using the drag and drop technique, inserting the various fields that Shiny provides as input and output, by selecting the desired size and position for each field. Once the user interface is generated, ShinyWYSIWYG also eases the development of the server logic.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Learning from students' perception on professors through opinion mining

Students' perception of classes measured through their opinions on teaching surveys allows to identify deficiencies and problems, both in the environment and in the learning methodologies. The purpose of this paper is to study, through sentiment analysis using natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) techniques, those opinions in order to identify topics that are relevant for students, as well as predicting the associated sentiment via polarity analysis. As a result, it is implemented, trained and tested two algorithms to predict the associated sentiment as well as the relevant topics of such opinions. The combination of both approaches then becomes useful to identify specific properties of the students' opinions associated with each sentiment label (positive, negative or neutral opinions) and topic. Furthermore, we explore the possibility that students' perception surveys are carried out without closed questions, relying on the information that students can provide through open questions where they express their opinions about their classes

Socialización e interés en la política en jóvenes de Chile

El objetivo del artículo es discutir la relación entre socialización e interés por la política en jóvenes de Chile, desde las teorías de la socialización y la cultura política, que sostienen que las orientaciones de los individuos son adquiridas mediante procesos de relaciones con otros y con instituciones, de forma recíproca. A partir de la Encuesta Metropolitana de Comportamiento Político Juvenil (2012) aplicada a residentes -entre 18 y 25 años- del Gran Santiago, y a través de modelos de regresión logística, se verifica que el principal factor explicativo del interés por la política es informarse de esta temática con los amigos y amigas, destacando así la relevancia del contexto socializador.1. Introducción, -2. Cultura y socialización política. -3. Metodología. -4. Resultados. -5.Discusión. - Lista de referencias

Differences between Atrial Fibrillation Detected before and after Stroke and TIA: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Preliminary evidence suggests that patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) detected after stroke (AFDAS) may have a lower prevalence of cardiovascular comorbidities and lower risk of stroke recurrence than AF known before stroke (KAF). Objective: We performed a systematic search and meta-analysis to compare the characteristics of AFDAS and KAF. Methods: We searched PubMed, Scopus, and EMBASE for articles reporting differences between AFDAS and KAF until June 30, 2021. We performed random- or fixed-effects meta-analyses to evaluate differences between AFDAS and KAF in demographic factors, vascular risk factors, prevalent vascular comorbidities, structural heart disease, stroke severity, insular cortex involvement, stroke recurrence, and death. Results: In 21 studies including 22,566 patients with ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack, the prevalence of coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, prior myocardial infarction, and a history of cerebrovascular events was significantly lower in AFDAS than KAF. Left atrial size was smaller, and left ventricular ejection fraction was higher in AFDAS than KAF. The risk of recurrent stroke was 26% lower in AFDAS than in KAF. There were no differences in age, sex, stroke severity, or death rates between AFDAS and KAF. There were not enough studies to report differences in insular cortex involvement between AF types. Conclusions: We found significant differences in the prevalence of vascular comorbidities, structural heart disease, and stroke recurrence rates between AFDAS and KAF, suggesting that they constitute different clinical entities within the AF spectrum. PROSPERO registration number is CRD42020202622

Huella hídrica: Una herramienta eficaz para el desafío de la sostenibilidad del agua

(Eng) Water is an indispensable liquid for subsisting as for the development of society. However, currently the availability of water refers to the world community, at the same time, to the physi cal and economic problems of the resource, reason why it is necessary that this resource has an efficient management of the way to satisfy the current needs, without compromising its use in the future. This article will present a conceptual analysis of the dynamics of the resource with the emphasis on scarcity, and the importance of integral management, around an indicator such as the water footprint, the view as an effective tool for decision making(Spa) El agua es un líquido indispensable tanto para subsistir como para el desarrollo de la sociedad. No obstante, actualmente la disponibilidad de agua preocupa a la comunidad mundial por la intensa aparición de escenarios de escasez física y económica del recurso. Razón por la cual, es necesario que este recurso tenga una gestión eficiente, de tal manera que satisfaga las necesidades actuales, sin comprometer su uso en el futuro. Este artículo, presentará un análisis conceptual de la dinámica del recurso con énfasis en la escasez, y la importancia de la gestión integral, alrededor de un indicador como la huella hídrica, vista como una herramienta eficaz para la toma de decisiones

Are Privacy Issues Important in Mexican Online Markets? An Empirical Investigation into Published Online Privacy Statements of Mexican Web Sites

Electronic commerce has had a considerable development in the world; it always implies information exchange, -being it frequently personal information-, between Internet users and site owners. Providing such data to a website, when usually users don’t even know where the company is located, has brought concerns about the use of private information by online business. Some countries have started to pass laws and guidelines regarding the use of private information gathered online, and also non government associations have started to certificate websites in the use and management of personal data. This study explores and analyzes the content of 120 privacy statements from online companies established in Mexico to address all privacy dimensions that seems to be important in online environment and to evaluate characteristics and differences in the use of the personal identifiable information among them. When possible, a comparison is made between some of the results of this research for companies operating in Mexico, and the findings made by Pollach (2006) for companies operating in U.S.A. Finally some possible future work is described and some conclusions are made