NO DIFFERENCE IN MATURATION CAPACITY, IN VITRO FERTILIZATION AND PREGNANT RATE OF OOCYTES OBTAINED BY ULTRASOUND-GUIDED OVUM PICK-UP FROM PREGNANT DAIRY COWS AND HEIFERS

Several lines of evidence assign to the ovarian follicular microenvironment the disparity between the fertility of dairy cows and heifers. This work evaluated the difference in maturation and subsequent embryonic development and pregnancy rate of oocytes from pregnant cows and heifers, during the spring season in a hot-desert weather location in Mexico. The oocytes were obtained from 112 ovum pickup technique (OPU) sessions, from Holstein pregnant cows, which were transported and maturated for 24 hoursusing a shipping and maturation commercial medium (SMM), fertilized and incubated in vitro (IVP-ET) evaluating number of oocytes obtained and embryoproduction. In the same way, oocytes obtained from 39 OPUsessions, from Holstein pregnant heifers, were exposed to the same protocol as the cows, and compared embryoproduction. Sexed frozen semen was used for both experiments. The 113 embryos obtained from cows and heifers were transferred, until reaching gestation diagnostic at day 45. Results showed significant differences in the number of oocytes obtained between cows of second and third lactation; however, no difference was shown among the number of embryos produced. While, for development of matured, fertilized and cultured oocytes, there was only significant difference in cows of second lactation, however, there was not an influence on the pregnancy rates. Although, the cleavage rate was higher for the group of heifers (63.5%), no difference was observed between groups. Also the pregnancy rate of transferred embryos, showed no difference between groups. We conclude that the number of recovered oocytes, the rate of cleavage, oocyte maturation and embryonic development through the OPU technique in pregnant dairy cattle are similar to what is obtained from pregnant heifer

The Iroquoian Sweat Lodges of Dorchester Village

During the Middle Iroquoian period (1300-1400 A.D.), semi-subterranean sweat lodges were structures commonly built on the inside of longhouses in Southern Ontario (Parks, 2018). These structures are known to have been used for health, social, and spiritual purposes (P. Timmins: personal communication, 2022). Stratigraphically, the basal layers of sweat lodges can yield artifacts that were used during shamanistic rituals and social ceremonies that took place within the structures (Parks, 2018). The lack of research on sweat lodges simply highlights the broader need to learn more about indigenous cultures across Ontario, both in prehistoric and modern contexts. In this report, the examination of the types of artifacts found in the basal and the infill layers of three sweat lodges aim to help provide further insight into the use-life of these structures and their cultural significance

Utopian and dystopian worlds: Science and progress as modern symptoms in Mexican Sci-Fi Films (2002-2012)

El presente artículo aborda, de manera monográfica, la producción de largometrajes mexicanos asociados al género de ciencia ficción, en el periodo del 2002 al 2012. El texto parte de entender este género como un producto cultural vinculado profundamente con la sociedad que lo imagina. Esta forma de proposición de mundos posibles, futuros o paralelos, es la clave de análisis de los deseos y peligros que, en este caso la sociedad mexicana, vislumbra sobre su propio devenir histórico. A partir de la caracterización de las historias, se hace una tipología que distingue dos diferentes narrativas de la ciencia ficción: las duras y las blandas. El texto se aboca al análisis de los casos que desarrollan un mundo narrativo completo vinculado a la ciencia, el progreso o el futuro como bases del argumento fílmico (ciencia ficción dura) para rastrear las huellas de la modernidad y los discursos universalistas que aún forman parte del proyecto nacional mexicano filtrado en su producción cinematográfica. Este tipo de relatos son esfuerzos por suturar la crisis del progreso en la época contemporánea, lo que plantea a la postmodernidad mexicana como una reinvención moderna, integradora y conciliadora. El texto es un análisis desde tres aristas: el contexto histórico y social de la modernidad en México; el género de ciencia ficción y su relación con esta realidad; y finalmente los filmes que encarnan las preocupaciones a través de los temas y los estilos que nos muestranThis article addresses, as a monographic review, the Mexican long feature film production associated to the sci-fi genre in the decade from two thousand two, to two thousand twelve. The text understands this genre as a cultural product profoundly attached to the society that imagines it. This way of proposing possible worlds – in the future or as a possible parallel life – is the key to analyze the dangers and desires that the Mexican society in particular foresees about its own historical future. Through the characterization of the stories, we extract a typology that distinguishes two different kinds of science fiction: hardcore and softcore stories. The text focuses on the hardcore films, which develop a whole narrative world linked to science, progress, or a better future as the main argument of the movie, and by doing so, we trace the prints of modernity and of universal discourses still present in Mexican national project, visible in its filmography. These stories are efforts to suture the crisis of progress in the contemporary era. This approach sets the possibility to interpret the Mexican posmodernity as a modern reinvention, integrated, conciliatory with the past. This paper is an analysis based in three axis: the social and historical context of Mexican modernity; the relation between the sci-fi genre and reality; and, finally, the themes that films recover to reveal us what are our worries and concern

BOIS: Bayesian Optimization of Interconnected Systems

Bayesian optimization (BO) has proven to be an effective paradigm for the global optimization of expensive-to-sample systems. One of the main advantages of BO is its use of Gaussian processes (GPs) to characterize model uncertainty which can be leveraged to guide the learning and search process. However, BO typically treats systems as black-boxes and this limits the ability to exploit structural knowledge (e.g., physics and sparse interconnections). Composite functions of the form $f(x, y(x))$, wherein GP modeling is shifted from the performance function $f$ to an intermediate function $y$, offer an avenue for exploiting structural knowledge. However, the use of composite functions in a BO framework is complicated by the need to generate a probability density for $f$ from the Gaussian density of $y$ calculated by the GP (e.g., when $f$ is nonlinear it is not possible to obtain a closed-form expression). Previous work has handled this issue using sampling techniques; these are easy to implement and flexible but are computationally intensive. In this work, we introduce a new paradigm which allows for the efficient use of composite functions in BO; this uses adaptive linearizations of $f$ to obtain closed-form expressions for the statistical moments of the composite function. We show that this simple approach (which we call BOIS) enables the exploitation of structural knowledge, such as that arising in interconnected systems as well as systems that embed multiple GP models and combinations of physics and GP models. Using a chemical process optimization case study, we benchmark the effectiveness of BOIS against standard BO and sampling approaches. Our results indicate that BOIS achieves performance gains and accurately captures the statistics of composite functions.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

New Paradigms for Exploiting Parallel Experiments in Bayesian Optimization

Bayesian optimization (BO) is one of the most effective methods for closed-loop experimental design and black-box optimization. However, a key limitation of BO is that it is an inherently sequential algorithm (one experiment is proposed per round) and thus cannot directly exploit high-throughput (parallel) experiments. Diverse modifications to the BO framework have been proposed in the literature to enable exploitation of parallel experiments but such approaches are limited in the degree of parallelization that they can achieve and can lead to redundant experiments (thus wasting resources and potentially compromising performance). In this work, we present new parallel BO paradigms that exploit the structure of the system to partition the design space. Specifically, we propose an approach that partitions the design space by following the level sets of the performance function and an approach that exploits partially-separable structures of the performance function found. We conduct extensive numerical experiments using a reactor case study to benchmark the effectiveness of these approaches against a variety of state-of-the-art parallel algorithms reported in the literature. Our computational results show that our approaches significantly reduce the required search time and increase the probability of finding a global (rather than local) solution.Comment: 32 pages, 16 figures, 7 algorithm

Quantification By Gas Chromatography of the Content of Amino Acids Present in Sausages Fortified with Quinoa Vegetable Protein

The objective of this research was to determine the quality of the protein present in sausages fortified with quinoa as a substitute for animal protein, through the identification and quantification of amino acids, using gas chromatography and precolumn derivatization. The amino acid composition found in the analyzed products was predominantly composed of: Threonine (THR) with a concentration of 1046.32µmol / L, aminobutyric acid (ABA) with a concentration of 9685.68 µmol / L and glutamic acid (GLU) with a concentration of 1178.71 µmol / L. These values were found in the treatment with the highest percentage of quinoa flour, establishing a directly proportional relationship between the concentrations of these amino acids and the percentage of quinoa. Gas chromatography was an adequate technique for determining the amino acid profile due to its speed and sensitivity. Keywords: amino acids, sausages, quinoa, derivatization, gas chromatography. RESUMEN La presente investigación tiene por objetivo determinar la calidad de la proteína presente en embutidos fortificados con quinua como sustituyente de la proteína animal, a través de la identificación y cuantificación de aminoácidos mediante la aplicación de cromatografía de gases y la derivatización precolumna. La composición de aminoácidos encontrada en los productos analizados destaca la presencia mayoritaria de: Treonina (THR) con una concentración de 1046,32 µmol/L, ácido aminobutírico (ABA) con una concentración de 9685,68 µmol/L  y ácido glutámico (GLU) con una concentración de 1178,71 µmol/L, todos estos valores se presentaron en el tratamiento con mayor porcentaje de harina de quinua estableciéndose una relación directamente proporcional entre las concentraciones de estos aminoácidos y el porcentaje de adición de quinua en los tratamientos estudiados. Se puede concluir que la cromatografía de gases empleada resultó una técnica adecuada para la determinación del perfil aminoacídico por la rapidez y sensibilidad presentada sobre las muestras estudiadas.  Palabras claves: aminoácidos, embutidos, quinua, derivatización, cromatografía de gases. &nbsp

Sustainability at UAM-Azcapotzalco for academic programs with virtual classroom methodologies

Abstract. The post-pandemic educational processes due to Covid-19 have generated an interest in structuring new learning trends. The Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM) Azcapotzalco identified the use of methodologies with digital tools known as virtual classrooms during the pandemic to continue academic activities. These digital tools are still being used in different academic programs, including undergraduate and postgraduate programs to promote the professionalism of the university community. This paper provides a general breakdown of the virtual classroom format as a methodology in the teaching-learning processes to improve the educational environment at a higher level and ensure educational sustainability through the innovation of new technologies and digital tools that can be applied at a national and international level. The expected results from this methodology are part of an improvement process aimed at generating academic programs in virtual environments to enrich the educational models at higher and postgraduate levels and creating collaborative groups within each teaching department that can be extrapolated to a unit or campus level.Keyword:Sustainable Academic, Educational Methodology, Educational Process, Virtual Classroom

Análisis financiero para el mejoramiento de los procesos en la gestión empresarial de la empresa Agricorp S.A. de la ciudad de Managua en el periodo 2014/2015

La investigación a continuación presentada constituye una serie de pasos efectuados con el objetivo fundamental de contribuir al desarrollo económico del país, puesto que las empresas constituyen el elemento privado esencial para crear rentabilidad y crecimiento sostenible. El presente estudio fue aplicado en la empresa Corporación Agrícola S.A (abreviada como Agricorp S.A.), siendo esta empresa de mucha importancia para el procesamiento y la distribución de productos de consumo básico entre las familias nicaragüenses. El propósito del presente estudio, ha permitido aplicar herramientas de orden financiero para determinar la posición de la empresa antes mencionada, de manera que se ha descubierto aspectos esenciales para garantizar operaciones productivas, eficientes, rentables y prosperas. En especial para adaptarse a tiempos cambiantes y complejos, que ameritan decisiones acertadas