Description of the spider Verita williamsi, a new genus and species from Santa Fe, Argentina (Araneae, Gnaphosidae)

Verita williamsi, nuevo género y especie (Araneae, Gnaphosidae) se describe a partir de especímenes colectados recientemente en el norte de la provincia de Santa Fe, Argentina. Estas arañas muestran una peculiar combinación de caracteres, solamente dos fúsulas de glándulas piriformes, setas alineadas en la escópula de las patas y las hileras anteriores no muy apartadas entre ellas, que sugieren que la especie está cercanamente emparentada a Micaria y a algunos de los representantes pequeños del grupo de géneros Anzacia. Se distingue de todos ellos por tener tres dientes en el retromargen queliceral y por carecer de setas escamosas iridiscentes en el abdomen.Verita williamsi, nuevo género y especie (Araneae, Gnaphosidae) se describe a partir de especímenes colectados recientemente en el norte de la provincia de Santa Fe, Argentina. Estas arañas muestran una peculiar combinación de caracteres, solamente dos fúsulas de glándulas piriformes, setas alineadas en la escópula de las patas y las hileras anteriores no muy apartadas entre ellas, que sugieren que la especie está cercanamente emparentada a Micaria y a algunos de los representantes pequeños del grupo de géneros Anzacia. Se distingue de todos ellos por tener tres dientes en el retromargen queliceral y por carecer de setas escamosas iridiscentes en el abdomen.Fil: Ramirez, Martin Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; ArgentinaFil: Grismado, Cristian José. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; Argentin

Attitudes to Conflict Resolution in the English Classroom: An Action Research Study

To foster the development of conflict resolution skills in a group of tenth graders through a didactic unit and trace its influence on their attitudes to conflicts.This project was aimed at developing ‘The Peace Lecture’ (Decree 1038 of 2015) in an English class of Las Villas Public School. To do so, the researcher designed a didactic unit to promote the development of conflict resolution skills in five English lessons. The activities of the didactic unit sought to influence the students’ attitudes toward conflict resolution while reinforcing their communicative competence. The impact of those activities was explored through reflections the participants wrote at the end of every lesson. Regarding the type of study chosen, this research was based on a mixed paradigm with an action research approach. The data analysis showed that students tended to have attitudes in favor of peaceful coexistence. Therefore, it can be assumed that the participants developed new compromising attitudes or reinforced previous ones after carrying out the activities of the didactic unit. In other words, students probably became more aware of the existence of alternative responses to everyday conflicts.This project was aimed at developing ‘The Peace Lecture’ (Decree 1038 of 2015) in an English class of Las Villas Public School. To do so, the researcher designed a didactic unit to promote the development of conflict resolution skills in five English lessons. The activities of the didactic unit sought to influence the students’ attitudes toward conflict resolution while reinforcing their communicative competence. The impact of those activities was explored through reflections the participants wrote at the end of every lesson. Regarding the type of study chosen, this research was based on a mixed paradigm with an action research approach. The data analysis showed that students tended to have attitudes in favor of peaceful coexistence. Therefore, it can be assumed that the participants developed new compromising attitudes or reinforced previous ones after carrying out the activities of the didactic unit. In other words, students probably became more aware of the existence of alternative responses to everyday conflicts

A Naive Model of Covid-19 Spread From A Dry Cough

Health experts have suggested that social distancing measures are one of the most effective ways of preventing the spread of Covid-19. Research primarily focused on large Covid filled droplets suggested that these droplets can move further than regulated social distancing guidelines (2 meters apart) in the presence of wind. This project aims to model the paths of smaller Covid virions that last longer in the air to see if they also move beyond social distancing norms in the presence of wind. By numerically solving a 2-dimensional Langevin equation for 3000 particles and modeling wind as one-dimensional and steady, velocities were found that translated into particles' positions. With wind, infectious doses of virions appeared to travel farther and faster, increasing the risk of infection before dispersion. The two-dimensional model given implies that social distancing norms are reasonable in cases with no wind, yet not conservative enough when there is wind.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Use of GPS and SmartGrade Technology in Heavy Civil Construction

Heavy Civil is a sector in the construction industry involving a variety of different heavy machinery and construction practices. Technology has evolved as an important aspect in this sector striving to improve efficiency, productivity, and traditional construction methods. Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is one of the many technological advancements that benefit any size of contractor in the heavy civil industry. With the help of a 3D model, base station, and rover, contractors implement advanced building methods that provide excellent owner satisfaction. Similar to GPS, SmartGrade is a tool integrated into heavy machinery that enhances performance without the need of wiring or masts. I researched these technological systems through an interview with the Director of Construction Positioning Technology at John Deere, and President of Brough Construction, Inc. a local general engineering contractor. With these interviews I concluded that this technology indeed offers great benefits to the contractor. Examples of these benefits include: increased productivity levels, increased efficiency, minimized material overages, and a guaranteed return on equity for an investment in this technology. There is no reason why a contractor should not invest in this type of equipment since the industry is moving towards more reliable and effective construction practices

Constrained multi-objective optimization for multi-UAV planning

Over the last decade, developments in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has greatly increased, and they are being used in many fields including surveillance, crisis management or automated mission planning. This last field implies the search of plans for missions with multiple tasks, UAVs and ground control stations; and the optimization of several objectives, including makespan, fuel consumption or cost, among others. In this work, this problem has been solved using a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm combined with a constraint satisfaction problem model, which is used in the fitness function of the algorithm. The algorithm has been tested on several missions of increasing complexity, and the computational complexity of the different element considered in the missions has been studied.Comment: Preprint of the article submitted and published in Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computin

Online Gamers Classification using K-means

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10422-5_22In order to achieve flow and increase player retention, it is important that games di culty matches player skills. Being able to evaluate how people play a game is a crucial component for detecting gamers strategies in videogames. One of the main problems in player strategy detection is whether attributes selected to define strategies correctly detect the actions of the player. In this paper, we will study a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game. In RTS the participants make use of units and structures to secure areas of a map and/or destroy the opponents resources. We will extract real-time information about the players strategies at several gameplays through a Web Platform. After gathering enough information, the model will be evaluated in terms of unsupervised learning (concretely, KMeans). Finally, we will study the similitude between several gameplays where players use di erent strategies

Effectiveness of adeno-associated virus in H9C2 cardiomyoblast and HEK293T cell lines

Diabetes mellitus type 2 (DMT2) is a prevalent disease that affects many people throughout the world leading to issues such as diabetic cardiomyopathy. O-GlcNAcylation dysregulation, caused by increased levels of serum glucose, contributes to the pathophysiology of decreased cardiac function. O-GlcNAcylation modulates cardiac contraction by reacting with either serine or threonine residues. Our goal was to demonstrate the success of infection of adeno-associated virus 9 (AAV9) carrying the gene of alpha-cardiac actin (ACTC) mutated at Thr326. Here we show the expression of the mutant ACTC T326D in H9C2 cardiomyoblasts and HEK293T cell lines. Expression in H9C2 cells was significantly increased compared to WT and control. In addition, expression in HEK293T cells was significantly increased compared to the control. These results are promising in that the ACTC gene carried in AAV9 can be transduced into cells in diabetic mouse model to prevent O-GlcNAcylation and improve cardiac contractility