Activity patterns and behavior of Myocastor coypus in a gated community in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Anthropization processes confront local wildlife with a new set of conditions that may lead to local extinctions or allow the expansion of some species. This is what happens with the coypu (Myocastor coypus) in gated communities in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires (Argentina), where its rapid population growth results in continuous conflicts with the local inhabitants. The aim of this study was to document the daily and seasonal activity patterns and behavior of the coypu in an urban landscape within their natural distribution range. To achieve this, we conducted a camera-trap survey within areas occupied by the species from February to November 2018. The coypu activity was mainly crepuscular and nocturnal with variations between seasons. We found that the seasons with the greatest activity patterns overlap were winter and autumn (84%), while the least overlap was observed between summer and winter (53%). During the active periods, time spent on foraging behavior was dominant. Time dedicated to vigilance was greater in summer than in winter. This result, alongside an increase in nocturnal activity during summer, shows that coypu in this urban landscape shift its behavior when exposed to an increasing human activity. This study brings up more ecological data of this species, which is key to find alternative control methods within gated communities to lead to a harmonic relationship between inhabitants and the species in its native distribution.Fil: Salas, Magdalena. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Hernandez Hernandez, Julio C. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana; MéxicoFil: Iglesias, Martín. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; ArgentinaFil: Corriale, Maria Jose. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; Argentin

Tracking end-of-life stage of chemicals: A scalable data-centric and chemical-centric approach.

[EN]Chemical flow analysis (CFA) can be used for collecting life-cycle inventory (LCI), estimating environmental releases, and identifying potential exposure scenarios for chemicals of concern at the end-of-life (EoL) stage. Nonetheless, the demand for comprehensive data and the epistemic uncertainties about the pathway taken by the chemical flows make CFA, LCI, and exposure assessment time-consuming and challenging tasks. Due to the continuous growth of computer power and the appearance of more robust algorithms, data-driven modelling represents an attractive tool for streamlining these tasks. However, a data ingestion pipeline is required for the deployment of serving data-driven models in the real world. Hence, this work moves forward by contributing a chemical-centric and data-centric approach to extract, transform, and load comprehensive data for CFA at the EoL, integrating cross-year and country data and its provenance as part of the data lifecycle. The framework is scalable and adaptable to production-level machine learning operations. The framework can supply data at an annual rate, making it possible to deal with changes in the statistical distributions of model predictors like transferred amount and target variables (e.g., EoL activity identification) to avoid potential data-driven model performance decay over time. For instance, it can detect that recycling transfers of 643 chemicals over the reporting years (1988 to 2020) are 29.87%, 17.79%, and 20.56% for Canada, Australia, and the U.S. Finally, the developed approach enables research advancements on data-driven modelling to easily connect with other data sources for economic information on industry sectors, the economic value of chemicals, and the environmental regulatory implications that may affect the occurrence of an EoL transfer class or activity like recycling of a chemical over years and countries. Finally, stakeholders gain more context about environmental regulation stringency and economic affairs that could affect environmental decision-making and EoL chemical exposure predictions.USEP

DESCENTRALIZACIÓN Y RECUPERACIÓN SOCIAL DEL TERRITORIO

Twenty years after the Colombian PoliticalConstitution was signed, the current researchaims at analyzing the state of thatdecentralizing alternative, taking into accounttwo essential elements – the democratization inthe exercise of the local power, and the responsibilities and the fiscal autonomy of the territorial entities, to the light of a governmental strategy of the Uribe Government – the socalled Social Recovery of the Territory -, within a concrete plan of a national government – the Frame Plan for the Integral Recovery of “Montes de María–” and several Municipal Development Plans, such as those from El Carmen de Bolívar, San Onofre, San Jacinto and Ovejas

The Impact of Digital Technology on Economic Growth and Productivity, and its Implications for Employment and Equality: An Evidence Review

As digital technology has begun to ‘eat the world’ it has also influenced the way that humans interact and transact with each other. Thus, it has inevitably had an effect on global, regional, national and local economies. This Evidence Report reviews the literature assessing the economic impact of digital technologies – namely information communication technology (ICT) – on economies and people. In terms of the economic effects of digital technology on economies, this literature review summarises its relationship with economic growth and productivity. Although increases in ICT infrastructure/equipment investment and increased ICT adoption tend to be strongly correlated with economic growth and productivity, causality is yet to be resolved, and the potential for endogenous, simultaneous and reverse causality remains. In other words, there is still the possibility that the economic impacts of the internet are caused by a third variable, that the economic impacts lead to internet adaption at the same time that internet adaption leads to economic impacts, and that it is economic growth that causes internet adaption rather than vice versa. Furthermore, the correlations tend to be highly heterogeneous – different across space and time – suggesting that the relationship is not always given. The review also summarises the literature concerning the effects of digital technology on employment and inequality.UK Department for International Developmen

Doing Digital Development Differently: lessons in adaptive management from technology for governance initiatives in Kenya

Development projects don’t always work as planned. This has long been acknowledged by those in the sector, and has led to several approaches that seek to solve complex development problems through enabling and encouraging greater adaptiveness and learning within projects (e.g. Doing Development Differently and Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation). Digital development projects experience many of these issues. Using technology for transparency and accountability (Tech4T&A) projects in Kenya as case studies, this research analysed the many different theoretical approaches to learning and adaptation, and then tested how these play out in reality. Firstly, the authors conducted an extensive review of the literature on the spectrum of approaches to adaptive learning. The findings were used to develop a framework through which to analyse adaptiveness at the different layers of complexity in projects (e.g. software design and development, programme design and management). The second part of the research consisted of interviews and focus group discussions with members of Tech4T&A projects in Kenya. Respondents helped identify the main characteristics of adaptiveness in Tech4T&A projects (e.g. who needs to adapt, and how and when) and the challenges and issues that inhibit projects’ ability to be adaptive. This process also revealed how accountability interplays with adaptiveness, and considered how better collaboration flows can enable adaptiveness. From a literature review and empirical study, the authors drew several conclusions for increasing adaptiveness in digital development projects. These include simplifying the many adaptive theories that abound, increasing responsiveness to project beneficiaries and stakeholders – and for stakeholders to keep on experimenting, networking and advocating.DFIDUSAIDOmidyar NetworkSid

Ten Frontier Technologies for International Development

The report finds clear evidence of the potential of frontier technologies to contribute to social, economic and political development gains in a number of ways, by: • Driving innovations in business models, products and processes that provide new goods and services to ‘bottom of the pyramid’ consumers; • Providing the means by which to make better use of existing underutilised household and productive assets; • Catalysing increases in demand, nationally and internationally, which create new industries and markets, leading to macro- and microeconomic growth; and • Changing demand for labour and capital, leading to direct job creation and transformation of the workforce. For all of the potential upsides, potential downsides must also be considered. While it will largely be the private sector that will drive deployment of these technologies, the public sector through national regulation, as well as development financing, will have a major role in mediating the pace and direction of technological change, both to achieve development objectives, and to protect potential losers.As new technologies and digital business models reshape economies and disrupt incumbencies, interest has surged in the potential of novel frontier technologies to also contribute to positive changes in international development and humanitarian contexts. Widespread adoption of new technologies is acknowledged as centrally important to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. But while frontier technologies can rapidly address large-scale economic, social or political challenges, they can also involve the displacement of existing technologies and carry considerable uncertainty and risk. Although there have been significant wins bringing the benefits of new technologies to poor consumers through examples such as mobile money or off-grid solar energy, there are many other areas where the applications may not yet have been developed into viable market solutions, or where opportunities have not yet been taken up in development practice

A detailed chemistry model for transient hydrogen and carbon monoxide catalytic recombination on parallel flat Pt surfaces implemented in an integral code

A detailed chemistry model has been adapted and developed for surface chemistry, heat and mass transfer between H2/CO/air/steam/CO2 mixtures and vertical parallel Pt-coated surfaces. This model is based onto a simplified Deutschmann reaction scheme for methane surface combustion and the analysis by Elenbaas for buoyancy-induced heat transfer between parallel plates. Mass transfer is treated by the heat and mass transfer analogy. The proposed model is able to simulate the H2/CO recombination phenomena characteristic of parallel-plate Passive Autocatalytic Recombiners (PARs), which have been proposed and implemented as a promising hydrogen-control strategy in the safety of nuclear power stations or other industries. The transient model is able to approach the warm-up phase of the PAR and its shut-down as well as the dynamic changes within the surrounding atmosphere. The model has been implemented within the MELCOR code and assessed against results of the Battelle Model Containment tests of the Zx series. Results show accurate predictions and a better performance than traditional methods in integral codes, i.e., empirical correlations, which are also much case-specific. Influence of CO present in the mixture on the PAR performance is also addressed in this paper

Determinants of bank efficiency: evidence from the Latin American banking industry

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze a variety of factors that can explain the differences in commercial bank efficiency among 17 countries in Latin America (LatAm). Design/methodology/approach: In a first stage, data envelopment analysis (DEA) and conditional efficiency analysis techniques are used to assess the relative efficiency level of 409 banks for the 2014-2016 period. The conditional efficiency approach considers environmental variables (that are beyond the manager’s control), which could influence the shape and the level of the boundary of the attainable set. In the second stage, the resulting conditional efficiency scores are correlated with internal variables (those that are under the manager’s control), which might affect the distribution of the inefficiencies. For this purpose, an econometric approach developed by Simar and Wilson (2007) is used. Findings: First stage scores reveal the heterogeneity of average efficiency within the region. Regarding the factors that may explain the differences in performance in the LatAm banking sector, the results allow us to state that certain internal variables such as bank size, the ratio of loans to total assets and the ratio of non-performing loans show the expected relationship to efficiency, in line with much of the previous literature. Originality/value: This is the first time that conditional efficiency and Simar and Wilson (2007) approaches have been applied at the same time to analyse the LatAm banking industry.Fil: Jiménez Hernandez, Ignacio. Universidad de Granada; EspañaFil: Palazzo, Gabriel Martín. Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Sáez Fernández, Francisco Javier. Universidad de Granada; Españ

Diagnosis and treatment for central Mucoepidermoid Carcinoma in the mandible : report of a clinical case in a young patient

A clinical case of a 13 year old male patient with a malignant tumor in the mandibular body area with two years of evolution and associated pain is reported. It was initially diagnosed as low grade central mucoepidermoid carcinoma through Hematoxylin and Eosin (H-E) staining in multiple biopsies. Considering the clinical and radiographic characteristics of the lesion, it was necessary to confirm the diagnosis through Periodic acid-Schiff (PAS). The treatment involved hemimandibulectomy, neck emptying, and complementary radiotherapy. This article aims to present a rare occurrence of this type of intraosseous malignant tumor of glandular origin in a young patient

Role of Curing Temperature of Poly(Glycerol Sebacate) Substrates on Protein-Cell Interaction and Early Cell Adhesion

[EN] A novel procedure to obtain smooth, continuous polymeric surfaces from poly(glycerol sebacate) (PGS) has been developed with the spin-coating technique. This method proves useful for separating the effect of the chemistry and morphology of the networks (that can be obtained by varying the synthesis parameters) on cell-protein-substrate interactions from that of structural variables. Solutions of the PGS pre-polymer can be spin-coated, to then be cured. Curing under variable temperatures has been shown to lead to PGS networks with different chemical properties and topographies, conditioning their use as a biomaterial. Particularly, higher synthesis temperatures yield denser networks with fewer polar terminal groups available on the surface. Material-protein interactions were characterised by using extracellular matrix proteins such as fibronectin (Fn) and collagen type I (Col I), to unveil the biological interface profile of PGS substrates. To that end, atomic force microscopy (AFM) images and quantification of protein adsorbed in single, sequential and competitive protein incubations were used. Results reveal that Fn is adsorbed in the form of clusters, while Col I forms a characteristic fibrillar network. Fn has an inhibitory effect when incubated prior to Col I. Human umbilical endothelial cells (HUVECs) were also cultured on PGS surfaces to reveal the effect of synthesis temperature on cell behaviour. To this effect, early focal adhesions (FAs) were analysed using immunofluorescence techniques. In light of the results, 130 degrees C seems to be the optimal curing temperature since a preliminary treatment with Col I or a Fn:Col I solution facilitates the formation of early focal adhesions and growth of HUVECs.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, grant number DPI2015-65401-C3-2-R. A. Valles acknowledges the support of the Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria de Educacion, Investigacion, Cultura y Deporte through project AEST/2020/052.Martín-Cabezuelo, R.; Rodriguez-Hernandez, J.; Vilariño, G.; Vallés Lluch, A. (2021). Role of Curing Temperature of Poly(Glycerol Sebacate) Substrates on Protein-Cell Interaction and Early Cell Adhesion. Polymers. 13(3):1-14. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13030382S11413