The History of entomology in Ecuador

This work is not intended to be a complete review of all publications about entomology in Ecuador. It compiles the history of entomology in Ecuador in a chronological order. It first provides observations about the influence of pre-Columbian cultures and the cultural heritage of indigenous populations. It then presents the contribution of the Spanish conquest and colonization chroniclers, the specialists that described American species during the Renaissance period and the great scientific expeditions. Finally the birth of Ecuadorian entomology as a science is described with the creation of institutes for applied research and the Ecuadorian museums of entomology

Missing: Where Are the Migrants in Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Plans?

Influenza pandemics are perennial global health security threats, with novel and seasonal influenza affecting a large proportion of the world’s population, causing enormous economic and social destruction. Novel viruses such as influenza A(H7N9) continue to emerge, posing zoonotic and potential pandemic threats. Many countries have developed pandemic influenza preparedness plans (PIPPs) aimed at guiding actions and investments to respond to such outbreak events. Migrant and mobile population groups—such as migrant workers, cross-border frontier workers, refugees, asylum seekers, and other non-citizen categories residing within national boundaries—may be disproportionately affected in the event of health emergencies, with irregular/undocumented migrants experiencing even greater vulnerabilities. Because of a combination of political, sociocultural, economic, and legal barriers, many migrants have limited access to and awareness of health and welfare services, as well as their legal rights. The conditions in which migrants travel, live, and work often carry exceptional risks to their physical and mental well-being. Even if certain migrant groups have access to health services, they tend to avoid them due to fear of deportation, xenophobic and discriminatory attitudes within society, and other linguistic, cultural, and economic barriers. Evidence indicates that social stigmatization and anxieties generated by restrictive immigration policies hinder undocumented immigrants’ access to health rights and minimizes immigrants’ sense of entitlement to such rights

Entomology in Ecuador : recent developments and future challenges

We review and analyze the recent development and future challenges facing entomology as a science in Ecuador, a country with limited financial and human resources and numerous environmental problems. Taxonomic studies of the Ecuadorian insect fauna have been well developed for only a few groups (e.g. Papilionoidea, Carabidae) and remains in its infancy for most insect orders. This is due to the huge diversity of species living in a great diversity of habitats and the difficulty to identify most species. There is a lack of published basic biological information and to a high rate of endemism of many groups, especially in the Andes. The development of ecological entomology as a formal discipline in Ecuador is a very recent phenomenon, and has been mostly limited to descriptive studies of the environmental factors that govern insect diversity and abundance. We outline a set of research challenges regarding the impact of global environmental changes on insect communities and habitats they live in and propose potential strategies for the development of entomology in Ecuador. Both basic and applied research will be important in this context as well as international collaboration to strengthen the role of entomological science in decision making processes in the country

Special session: Hot topics: Statistical test methods

International audienceThe process of testing Integrated Circuits involves a huge amount of data: electrical circuit measurements, information from wafer process monitors, spatial location of the dies, wafer lot numbers, etc. In addition, the relationships between faults, process variations and circuit performance are likely to be very complex and non-linear. Test (and its extension to diagnosis) should be considered as a challenging highly dimensional multivariate problem.Advanced statistical data processing offers a powerful set of tools, borrowed from the fields of data mining, machine learning or artificial intelligence, to get the most out of this data. Indeed, these mathematical tools have opened a number of novel and interesting research lines within the field of IC testing.In this special session, prominent researchers in this field will share their views on this topic and present some of their last findings. The first talk will discuss the interest of likelihood prevalence in random fault simulation. The second talk will show how statistical data analysis can help diagnosing test efficiency. The third talk will deal with the reliability of Alternate Test of AMS-RF circuits. The fourth and last talk will address the idea of mining the test data for improving design manufacturing and even test itself

Peculiar outburst of A 0535+26 observed with INTEGRAL, RXTE and Suzaku

A normal outburst of the Be/X-ray binary system A0535+26 has taken place in August 2009. It is the fourth in a series of normal outbursts that have occured around the periastron passage of the source, but is unusual by starting at an earlier orbital phase and by presenting a peculiar double-peaked light curve. A first "flare" (lasting about 9 days from MJD 55043 on) reached a flux of 440 mCrab. The flux then decreased to less than 220 mCrab, and increased again reaching 440 mCrab around the periastron at MJD 55057. Target of Opportunity observations have been performed with INTEGRAL, RXTE and Suzaku. First results of these observations are presented, with special emphasis on the cyclotron lines present in the X-ray spectrum of the source, as well as in the pulse period and energy dependent pulse profiles of the source.Comment: 6 pages, Accepted for publication on PoS, Proceedings of "The Extreme sky: Sampling the Universe above 10 keV", held in Otranto (Italy) in October 200

Kinetic Study of Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Ethane over MoVTeNb Mixed-Oxide Catalyst

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see [insert ACS Articles on Request author-directed link to Published Work, see http://doi.org/10.1021/ie402447h[EN] A MoVTeNb multimetallic mixed oxide was studied for the oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane, a promising alternative for catalytic ethylene production. Lab-scale steady-state experimental reaction data were obtained according to a 3(k) experimental design to investigate the simultaneous effect of temperature (400-480 degrees C) and space time [23-70 g(cat) h (mol of ethane) I]. A fixed-bed reactor at atmospheric pressure was employed, feeding a mixture of ethane, oxygen, and nitrogen. Ethane conversion varied from 17 to 85%, whereas selectivity for ethylene and COx varied from 94 to 76% and from 4.0 to 24%, respectively. These types of analyses are useful for determining the optimum reaction conditions to enhance the catalytic performance of the mixed oxides presented herein.This work was financially supported by the Instituto Mexicano del Petroleo. Technical support from Eng. G. Alonso-Ramirez is gratefully acknowledged.Valente, J.; Quintana-Solorzano, R.; Armendariz-Herrera, H.; Barragan-Rodriguez, G.; López Nieto, JM. (2014). Kinetic Study of Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Ethane over MoVTeNb Mixed-Oxide Catalyst. Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research. 53(5):1775-1786. doi:10.1021/ie402447hS1775178653

Understanding the kinetic behavior of a Mo-V-Te-Nb mixed oxide in the oxydehydrogenation of ethane

Two kinetic models based on Langmuir-Hinshelwood (LH) and Eley-Rideal (ER) mechanisms were developed to describe the oxydehydrogenation of ethane to yield ethylene over a Mo-V-Te-Nb catalyst. Obtained in a lab-scale fixed-bed reactor, experimental data at the steady-state were used to estimate the kinetic models parameters via a nonisothermal regression. Experiments were performed using an ethane, oxygen and nitrogen mixture as feedstock, spanning temperatures from 673 to 753 K, inlet partial pressures of oxygen and ethane between 5.0 and 22.0 kPa, and space-time from 10 to 70 g(cat) h(molethane)- (1). Ethylene, CO and CO2 were the only detected products, the selectivity for ethylene ranged from 76% to 96% for an ethane conversion interval 4-85%. A series of tests feeding ethylene instead of ethane were also performed at 713 K, varying inlet partial pressures and space-time in the same ranges as was done for ethane. Ethylene conversion was relatively low, 3-14%, the dominant product being CO with CO/CO2 ratios from 0.73 to 0.79. The LH mechanism was found to represent better the experimental data. The oxydehydrogenation of ethane was the reaction with the lowest activation energy, 108-115 kJ mol (1). Except for the conversion of ethane into CO2, deep oxidations were detected as very energetically demanding steps, 156-193 kJ mol (1). Competitive adsorption between reagents and products occurred in the two mechanisms particularly at relatively high reaction severity, water re-adsorption being weaker in comparison with COx re-adsorption. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This work was financially supported by the Instituto Mexicano del Petroleo.Quintana-Solorzano, R.; Barragan-Rodriguez, G.; Armendariz-Herrera, H.; López Nieto, JM.; Valente, JS. (2014). Understanding the kinetic behavior of a Mo-V-Te-Nb mixed oxide in the oxydehydrogenation of ethane. Fuel. 138:15-26. doi:10.1016/j.fuel.2014.07.051152613

The Effects of Two Different Resisted Swim Training Load Protocols on Swimming Strength and Performance

This study used a power rack device to evaluate the effects of 2 different approaches to resisted swim training loads on swimming strength and performance. Sixteen male, youth national-level swimmers (mean age, 16.22 +/- 2.63 years; body height, 169 +/- 10.20 cm; body mass, 61.33 +/- 9.90 kg) completed a 6-week specific strength-training program, and were then randomly assigned to one of the two groups: a standard training group (GS, n = 8) and a flat pyramid-loading pattern group (GP, n = 8). Strength and power tests along with specific swimming tests (50-m crawl and 50-m competition-style time trials) were conducted at baseline (pre-test), before the third week (mid-test), and after 6 weeks of intervention (post-test). Isokinetic swim bench tests were conducted to obtain measurements of force production and power, and 1RM tests with the power rack system were conducted to measure the maximum drag load (MDL) and specific swimming power. Following 6 weeks of intervention, the mean MDL increased (p < 0.05) by 13.94%. Scores for the 50-m competition style and 50-m crawl time trials improved by 0.32% and 0.78%, respectively, in the GP; however, those changes were not statistically significant. The GS significantly increased their time in the 50-m competition style by 2.59%, and their isokinetic force production decreased by 14.47% (p < 0.05). The 6-week strength-training program performed with the power rack device in a pyramidal organization was more effective than a standard linear load organization in terms of producing improvements in the MDL; however, it did not produce significant improvements in performance. The use of a strength-training program with a pyramidal organization can be recommended for specific strength-training in young swimmers during a preparatory period. However, in our study, that program did not produce significant changes in 50-m crawl and main competition style performance