A CASE STUDY OF LUNTIAN MULTI-PURPOSE COOPERATIVE IN BARANGAY LALAIG, TIAONG, QUEZON, PHILIPPINES: A VERTICAL INTEGRATION APPROACH

The Luntian Multi-Purpose Cooperative located in Tiaong, Quezon, Philippines. The Luntian Multi-Purpose cooperative focuses more on feed production as well as hog fattening. The LMC applied the vertical integration to develop the cooperative. They have their members as their primary costumers of their feeds. The cooperative’s business activity includes also meat shop, granting of production loan, micro-finance, mobilization of saving deposits, aside from feed milling and hog fattening. Different agencies, industry organizations and private institutions provide trainings, seminars, assistance, as well as credit for the cooperative.The aims of the study was to determine the present and discuss a noteworthy business issue (s) of Luntian Multipurpose Cooperative, evaluate the business environment prevailing at a particular time of this case , assess the cooperative’s performance in terms of the four business functions , define the problem relevant to the business issue(s) being studied. The study used primary and secondary data. Primary data were gathered through interviews with the key personnel, managers, and other informants of the Luntian Multipurpose Cooperative in order to obtain responses regarding the overall status of the cooperative including its problem and plans. Secondary data were taken from files and documents, especially the history, background information and financial statements. Other data were taken through research materials such as book, unpublished special problems and from some government institutions. The recommendation of this research showed that Luntian MPC should engage in establishing a communal farm as to become the primary source of hybrid piglets that their members would raised. The alternatives solution was establishing a breeding farm that would ask for initial investment. Keywords: cooperative, vertical integration, case study, por

Feasibility Study of Establishing an Artificial Insemination (Ai) Center for Carabaos in San Ildefonso, Bulacan, Philippines

The productivity of the carabao subsector is influenced by several constraints such as social,technical, economic and policy factors. The need to enhance the local production of carabaos will helplocal farmers to increase their income. Thus, producing thorough breeds of carabaos and improving itgenetically is the best response to these constraints. This study was conducted to present the feasibilitystudy of establishing an Artificial Insemination (AI) Center and its planned area of operation in Brgy.San Juan, Ildefonso, Bulacan. The market, production, organizational and financial viability of operatingthe business would also be evaluated. This particular study will provide insights in establishing an AICenter. Included in this study is the identification of anticipated problems that could affect the businessand recommendation of specific courses of action to counteract these possible problems. Primary datawere obtained through interviews with key informants from the Philippine. Carabao Center (PCC). Togain insights about the present status of an AI Center, interviews with the technicians of PCC and privatefarm were done to get additional information. Secondary data were acquired from various literatures andfrom San Ildefonso Municipal Office. The proposed area would be 1,500 square meters that would beallotted for the laboratory and bullpen. The AI Center will operate six days a week and will be openedfrom 8 AM until 5 PM. However, customers or farmers can call the technicians beyond the office hoursin case of emergency. The total initial investment of Php 3,825,417.39 is needed in establishing the AICenter. The whole amount will be sourced from the owner\u27s equity. Financial projection showed an IRRof 30% with a computed NPV of Php 2,415,597.00 and a payback period of 3.97 years. Based on all themarket, technical, organizational, financial factors, projections and data analysis, it is said that thisbusiness endeavor is viable and feasible

Especies Arbóreas de las Familias Euphorbiaceae, Pittosporaceae y Salicaceae son Infectadas por ‘CA. Phytoplasma fraxini’ y ‘CA. Phytoplasma asteris’ en Infecciones Mixtas en Bogotá, Colombia

 La presencia de fitoplasmas del grupo 16SrI (‘Ca. Phytoplasma asteris’) fue reportada en Croton spp. (Eu­phorbiaceae), Pittosporum undulatum (Pittosporaceae) y Populus nigra (Salicaceae), en Bogotá. En este traba­jo se reporta la existencia adicional de fitoplasmas del grupo 16SrVII ‘Ca. Phytoplasma fraxini’ en estas mismas especies de árboles ornamentales, por técnicas moleculares como PCR anidada, RFLP y secuenciación del gen 16SrRNA. Los resultados muestran la existencia de un complejo de fitoplasmas de los grupos 16SrI y 16SrVII que se asocian con síntomas como deformación general de la corona, ramas en copo, amarillamiento, elonga­ción anormal de brotes apicales, escobas de bruja y rebrotación epicórmica que afectan el estado de sanidad de los árboles. En diciembre de 2013 la prevalencia sintomática en Croton spp., P. undulatum y P. nigra y se estimó en 36%, 93% y 85% respectivamente. Este trabajo presenta evidencia de que plantas de familias dife­rentes a Oleaceae que son susceptibles a fitoplasmas del grupo 16SrVII y que en este caso se encuentran en infecciones mixtas con fitoplasmas del grupo 16SrI. Se presentan evidencias de una enfermedad emergente de alta prevalencia en estas especies de árboles han pasado desapercibidas hasta la fecha, pero suponen un riesgo para la supervivencia de los árboles urbanos en Bogotá

Diferenças individuais em mulheres na avaliação da atratividade facial: uma revisão

Este artigo apresenta uma revisão teórica sobre três fatores que podem influenciar no julgamento da atratividade facial: cuidado parental, fatores psicológicos e percepção da dominância, todos relacionados às diferenças individuais. Discute-se se eles afetam os resultados de estudos que envolvam percepção facial, de modo a refutar a hipótese dos hormônios como os maiores influenciadores no julgamento da atratividade. Encontrar as possíveis variáveis que influenciam a atratividade facial pode ajudar a explicar os resultados controversos, além de ampliar o conhecimento sobre a escolha do parceiro

Mapping the Sites of Putative Tumor Suppressor Genes at 6p25 and 6p21.3 in Cervical Carcinoma: Occurrence of Allelic Deletions in Precancerous Lesions

Allelic deletions on the short arm of chromosome 6 (6p) are one of the common, possibly early, genetic changes that occur in the pathogenesis of cervical carcinoma (CC). Previous loss of heterozygosity (LOH) studies in CC identified a number of critical regions of deletions on 6p. However, the precise location of minimally deleted regions and their role in precancer- ous lesions have not been well characterized. To address these questions, we first performed a detailed LOH analysis on 6p in 59 cases of invasive CC. The pattern of LOH identified two minimal regions of deletions, one spanning a 5 cM genetic distance at 6p25 and a second site of 10.3 cM deletion mapping to 6p21.3. The 6p21.3 minimal deletion spans HLA class I genes. To understand the role of 6p genetic alterations in the develop- ment of CC, we also investigated 12 high-grade and 4 low-grade cases of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) for LOH after laser microdissec- tion. The high-grade CINs exhibited 91.7% LOH, and low-grade CINs had 50% LOH. These findings implicate the presence of at least two tumor suppressor genes on 6p relevant to CC and suggest that these genetic alterations occur very early in CC development. This study should there- fore facilitate the identification of tumor suppressor genes on 6p and may identify which CINs are at high risk of progressing to invasive CC

Hickson-like compact groups inhabiting different environments

Although Compact Groups of galaxies (CGs) have been envisioned as isolated extremely dense structures in the Universe, it is accepted today that many of them could be not as isolated as thought. In this work, we study Hickson-like CGs identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16 to analyse these systems and their galaxies when embedded in different cosmological structures. To achieve this goal, we identify several cosmological structures where CGs can reside: Nodes of filaments, Loose Groups, Filaments and cosmic Voids. Our results indicate that 45 per cent of CGs do not reside in any of these structures, i.e., they can be considered non-embedded or isolated systems. Most of the embedded CGs are found inhabiting Loose Groups and Nodes, while there are almost no CGs residing well inside cosmic Voids. Some physical properties of CGs vary depending on the environment they inhabit. CGs in Nodes show the largest velocity dispersions, the brightest absolute magnitude of the first-ranked galaxy, and the smallest crossing times, while the opposite occurs in Non-Embedded CGs. When comparing galaxies in all the environments and galaxies in CGs, CGs show the highest fractions of red/early-type galaxy members in most of the absolute magnitudes ranges. The variation between galaxies in CGs inhabiting one or another environment is not as significant as the differences caused by belonging or not to a CG. Our results suggest a plausible scenario for galaxy evolution in CGs in which both, large-scale and local environments play essential roles.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in MNRA

Ictal propagation of high frequency activity is recapitulated in interictal recordings: effective connectivity of epileptogenic networks recorded with intracranial EEG

Seizures are increasingly understood to arise from epileptogenic networks across which ictal activity is propagated and sustained. In patients undergoing invasive monitoring for epilepsy surgery, high frequency oscillations have been observed within the seizure onset zone during both ictal and interictal intervals. We hypothesized that the patterns by which high frequency activity is propagated would help elucidate epileptogenic networks and thereby identify network nodes relevant for surgical planning. Intracranial EEG recordings were analyzed with a multivariate autoregressive modeling technique (short-time direct directed transfer function--SdDTF), based on the concept of Granger causality, to estimate the directionality and intensity of propagation of high frequency activity (70-175 Hz) during ictal and interictal recordings. These analyses revealed prominent divergence and convergence of high frequency activity propagation at sites identified by epileptologists as part of the ictal onset zone. In contrast, relatively little propagation of this activity was observed among the other analyzed sites. This pattern was observed in both subdural and depth electrode recordings of patients with focal ictal onset, but not in patients with a widely distributed ictal onset. In patients with focal ictal onsets, the patterns of propagation recorded during pre-ictal (up to 5 min immediately preceding ictal onset) and interictal (more than 24h before and after seizures) intervals were very similar to those recorded during seizures. The ability to characterize epileptogenic networks from interictal recordings could have important clinical implications for epilepsy surgery planning by reducing the need for prolonged invasive monitoring to record spontaneous seizures

The VVV near-IR galaxy catalogue in a Northern part of the Galactic disc

The automated identification of extragalactic objects in large surveys provides reliable and reproducible samples of galaxies in less time than procedures involving human interaction. However, regions near the Galactic disc are more challenging due to the dust extinction. We present the methodology for the automatic classification of galaxies and non-galaxies at low Galactic latitude regions using both images and, photometric and morphological near-IR data from the VVVX survey. Using the VVV-NIRGC, we analyse by statistical methods the most relevant features for galaxy identification. This catalogue was used to train a CNN with image data and an XGBoost model with both photometric and morphological data and then to generate a dataset of extragalactic candidates. This allows us to derive probability catalogues used to analyse the completeness and purity as a function of the configuration parameters and to explore the best combinations of the models. As a test case, we apply this methodology to the Northern disc region of the VVVX survey, obtaining 172,396 extragalatic candidates with probabilities of being galaxies. We analyse the performance of our methodology in the VVV disc, reaching an F1-score of 0.67, a 65 per cent purity and a 69 per cent completeness. We present the VVV-NIR Galaxy Catalogue: Northern part of the Galactic disc comprising 1,003 new galaxies, with probabilities greater than 0.6 for either model, with visual inspection and with only 2 previously identified galaxies. In the future, we intend to apply this methodology to other areas of the VVVX survey.Comment: 12 pages, 14 figures, accepted in MNRA

Tablero de control para el seguimiento y evaluación de las políticas públicas

In Colombia, public policies are designed that must be articulated with the Development Plans and Comprehensive Plans for Security and Citizen Coexistence (PISCC) at the Municipal, Departmental and National levels. There is concern at the national level because these policies are not normally monitored or evaluated, or if they are carried out they do so in a very elementary way. Corporate Governance seeks to establish guidelines to achieve the strategic direction of the organization; this is to verify the fulfillment of its objectives, to make an adequate risk management and an optimization of the resources. Territorial entities, more than any other organization, must strive for the fulfillment of their objectives, plans, programs and projects, facilitating the monitoring of the execution of public resources, at the same time that they adequately manage their risks. This dashboard tool allows the monitoring and evaluation of the plans and programs proposed within the PISCC, under the eye of IT Government as a control mechanism of public policies.En Colombia se diseñan Políticas Públicas que deben estar articuladas con los Planes de Desarrollo y Planes Integrales de Seguridad y Convivencia Ciudadana (PISCC) a nivel Municipal, Departamental y Nacional. Existe una preocupación a nivel nacional porquenormalmente no se hace un monitoreo ni evaluación a dichas políticas o si se realizan lo hacen de forma muy elemental. El GobiernoCorporativo busca establecer lineamientos para lograr el direccionamiento estratégico de la organización; esto es verificar el cumplimiento desus objetivos, hacer una adecuada gestión de riesgos y una optimización de los recursos. Los entes territoriales, más que cualquier otraorganización deben propender por el cumplimiento de sus objetivos, planes, programas y proyectos, facilitando el seguimiento a la ejecuciónde los recursos públicos, a la vez que gestionan adecuadamente sus riesgos. Esta herramienta de tablero de control permite el monitoreo yevaluación de los planes y programas planteados dentro de los PISCC, bajo una mirada de Gobierno de TI como un mecanismo de control delas políticas públicas