TopicViz: Semantic Navigation of Document Collections

When people explore and manage information, they think in terms of topics and themes. However, the software that supports information exploration sees text at only the surface level. In this paper we show how topic modeling -- a technique for identifying latent themes across large collections of documents -- can support semantic exploration. We present TopicViz, an interactive environment for information exploration. TopicViz combines traditional search and citation-graph functionality with a range of novel interactive visualizations, centered around a force-directed layout that links documents to the latent themes discovered by the topic model. We describe several use scenarios in which TopicViz supports rapid sensemaking on large document collections

Pedagogía salesiana de la organización popular

La experiencia de desarrollo comunitario en Salinas de Guaranda, nace de un llamado del obispo salesiano Mons. Cándido Rada, a «anunciar, celebrar y construir» el Reino de Dios, en la zona norte de su diócesis, caracterizada por una extrema pobreza y la dominación de la hacienda. Es fácil leer la presentación del director de la Fundación Familia Salesiana de Salinas, Lcdo. Carlos Méndez a la luz de la pedagogía de Don Bosco. De mi parte me limito simplemente a señalar, en forma de introducción, los elementos fundamentales del estilo educativo salesiano, que han guiado nuestros pasos en forma progresivamente siempre más clara y definida, en su aplicación a los retos del desarrollo

El sistema de evaluación de profesores en la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia

During the last ten years, the University has carried out several actions aimed at reaching high quality levels. One of the most important actions taken deals with the system for professor evaluation, which is also part of the general evaluation system implemented in the university not to seek control but to make all the necessary improvements. The professor evaluation system assesses academic and administrative performance, intellectual production and other achievements such as additional university degrees, participation in training courses, academic awards, and proficiency in other languages. By means of the information obtained from evaluation processes and the incentives established in the Professor Regulations, both the scholars and the institution have implemented improvement actions that have created a new professor profile within the University: their dedication has increased considerably, thus allowing the establishment of a stable scientific teaching community; the teaching staff now has better and more graduate degrees; there is more intellectual production; and their awards have also increased substantially.Entre las diversas acciones emprendidas por la Universidad en los últimos diez años, encaminadas al logro de altos niveles de calidad, debe destacarse lo relativo al sistema de evaluación de profesores. Este se enmarca en el sistema general de evaluación en la Universidad, que persigue fundamentalmente el mejoramiento y no el control. El sistema de evaluación de profesores incluye la evaluación de desempeños académicos y administrativos, la evaluación de sus obras de producción intelectual y la evaluación de ciertos logros, tales como la obtención de segundos títulos universitarios, la realización de cursos formales no conducentes a título, la obtención de distinciones académicas y la competencia en idiomas no nativos. A través del conocimiento que se genera en los procesos de evaluación y de los incentivos establecidos en le Reglamento del Profesorado, los profesores y la institución ha tomado acciones de mejoramiento que han llevado a un nuevo perfil del profesorado en la Universidad. La dedicación de los profesores ha aumentado notablemente lo cual ha permitido la conformación de una comunidad profesoral científica y estable; la composición del cuerpo profesoral ha mejorado sustancialmente en lo relativo a títulos de postgrado; la producción intelectual se ha incrementado enormemente; y se ha multiplicado los logros de los profesores

Considerations upon interoperability on pervasive computing environments

Component-based Development is a challenging paradigm, though Pervasive Computing Environments, as a special case of such systems, carry even more complications. Applications must be kept available for users anytime, anywhere no matter the user location. This implies transparency on interconnection of components at run-time. Since components may not be previously evaluated when a user’s context change happen, integration of new components might blur the actual requirements of that system. This implies to consider Interoperability at different levels. This paper reports on those challenges, also discussing the possibility to improve the description of an approach under a formal basis. Thus solution strategies can be better defined and applied.Eje: Ingeniería en SoftwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics on the Electronic Boltzmann Equilibrium Distribution

We prove that for a combined system of classical and quantum particles, it is possible to write a dynamics for the classical particles that incorporates in a natural way the Boltzmann equilibrium population for the quantum subsystem. In addition, these molecular dynamics do not need to assume that the electrons immediately follow the nuclear motion (in contrast to any adiabatic approach), and do not present problems in the presence of crossing points between different potential energy surfaces (conical intersections or spin-crossings). A practical application of this molecular dynamics to study the effect of temperature in molecular systems presenting (nearly) degenerate states - such as the avoided crossing in the ring-closure process of ozone - is presented.Comment: published in New J. Phy