Comparison of Collaborative and Cooperative Schemes in Sensor Networks for Non-Invasive Monitoring of People at Home

This paper looks at wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in healthcare, where they can monitor patients remotely. WSNs are considered one of the most promising technologies due to their flexibility and autonomy in communication. However, routing protocols in WSNs must be energy-efficient, with a minimal quality of service, so as not to compromise patient care. The main objective of this work is to compare two work schemes in the routing protocol algorithm in WSNs (cooperative and collaborative) in a home environment for monitoring the conditions of the elderly. The study aims to optimize the performance of the algorithm and the ease of use for people while analyzing the impact of the sensor network on the analysis of vital signs daily using medical equipment. We found relationships between vital sign metrics that have a more significant impact in the presence of a monitoring system. Finally, we conduct a performance analysis of both schemes proposed for the home tracking application and study their usability from the user’s point of view

Gestión del conocimiento. Perspectiva multidisciplinaria. Volumen 7

El libro “Gestión del Conocimiento. Perspectiva Multidisciplinaria”, volumen 7, de la Colección Unión Global, es resultado de investigaciones. Los capítulos del libro, son resultados de investigaciones desarrolladas por sus autores. El libro es una publicación internacional, seriada, continua, arbitrada de acceso abierto a todas las áreas del conocimiento, que cuenta con el esfuerzo de investigadores de varios países del mundo, orientada a contribuir con procesos de gestión del conocimiento científico, tecnológico y humanístico que consoliden la transformación del conocimiento en diferentes escenarios, tanto organizacionales como universitarios, para el desarrollo de habilidades cognitivas del quehacer diario. La gestión del conocimiento es un camino para consolidar una plataforma en las empresas públicas o privadas, entidades educativas, organizaciones no gubernamentales, ya sea generando políticas para todas las jerarquías o un modelo de gestión para la administración, donde es fundamental articular el conocimiento, los trabajadores, directivos, el espacio de trabajo, hacia la creación de ambientes propicios para el desarrollo integral de las instituciones

Vocabulario de la sociedad civil, la ruralidad y los movimientos sociales en América Latina

El Vocabulario de la Sociedad Civil, la Ruralidad y los Movimientos Sociales en América Latina tiene como objetivo desarrollar vocablos relacionados con temas de gran trascendencia para la vida colectiva de la población Latinoamericana; pretende introducir a estudiantes, personas del ámbito académico y activistas en la comprensión de estas categorías de análisis. A través de la mirada de 70 especialistas que participaron en este vocabulario, es posible comprender muchos de los términos que se utilizan dentro de la investigación social y áreas relacionadas con las ciencias políticas, ambientales y rurales, a partir de una mayor explicación y detalle. Es por ello que se inserta este trabajo desde una mirada colectiva y amplia de los conceptos que se exponen. En este libro podrá encontrar las ideas de varios autores y autoras de distintas universidades, con una visión multi, inter y transdisciplinaria. El esfuerzo que se realizó para conjuntar varios términos y analizar su compleja red de interpretaciones, permitirá que este manuscrito pueda ser consultado por estudiantes, personas del ámbito científico-académico, y ciudadanía; porque contiene el estado del arte, la historia del paulatino avance de múltiples conceptos y su vigencia en el contexto actual

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition)

In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. For example, a key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process versus those that measure fl ux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process including the amount and rate of cargo sequestered and degraded). In particular, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation must be differentiated from stimuli that increase autophagic activity, defi ned as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (inmost higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium ) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the fi eld understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. It is worth emphasizing here that lysosomal digestion is a stage of autophagy and evaluating its competence is a crucial part of the evaluation of autophagic flux, or complete autophagy. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. Along these lines, because of the potential for pleiotropic effects due to blocking autophagy through genetic manipulation it is imperative to delete or knock down more than one autophagy-related gene. In addition, some individual Atg proteins, or groups of proteins, are involved in other cellular pathways so not all Atg proteins can be used as a specific marker for an autophagic process. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field

Traceability of Mexican Avocado Supply Chain: A Microservice and Blockchain Technological Solution

Currently, the Mexican avocado supply chain has some social limitations that make the traceability process a difficult task and severely limits the regions that can add their harvest to the international market. We hypothesize that modernizing the traceability process and improving the trust of the final user could help in opening the market to other regions. This paper describes the Mexican avocado supply chain characteristics, identifies the actors involved in the supply chain, and emphasizes the problems that the current actors have when exporting them to the US market. On this basis, we propose a technological solution system to automate the traceability process. The system was designed to comply with the authority and consumer requirements. It proposes a combination of the benefits of traditional data traceability using Microservices architecture with a new layer of Blockchain auditing that will add value to current and new actors in every step of the supply chain. We contribute by proposing a model that adds value to the avocado supply chain with the following characteristics: Integrity, auditing service, dual traceability, transparency, and a front-end application with trust user-oriented. Our proofs demonstrate that the blockchain layer does not represent a considered high extra transaction cost; it could be regarded as despicable for the economy of the consumer considering costs and benefits

Sustainable Project-Based Learning Methodology Adaptable to Technological Advances for Web Programming

The fast pace of development of the Internet and the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic have considerably impacted the educative sector, encouraging the constant transformation of the teaching/learning strategies and more in technological areas as Educational Software Engineering. Web programming, a fundamental topic in Software Engineering and Cloud-based applications, deals with various critical challenges in education, such as learning continuous emerging technological tools, plagiarism detection, generating innovative learning environments, among others. Continual change and even more change with the current digitization becomes a challenge for teachers and students who cannot depend on traditional educational methods. The article presents a sustainable teaching/learning methodology for web programming courses in Engineering Education using project-based learning adaptable to the continuous web technological advances. The methodology has been developed and improved during 9 years, 15 groups, and 3 different universities. Our results demonstrate that the methodology is adaptable with new technologies that might arise; it also presents the advantages of avoiding plagiarism in students and a personalized induction for every specific student in the learning process

A Cloud Microservices Architecture for Data Integrity Verifiability Based on Blockchain

The current digital age, mainly characterized by an economy based upon information technology, demands a data integrity service, even more so because organizations and companies are migrating their services over the cloud. This is not a simple task; it is cumbersome since traditional schemes in databases could be subject to modifications. However, it can be solved using blockchain technology. This paper provides a data integrity verifiability architecture for cloud systems based on blockchain. The architecture provides a mechanism to store events (as logs) within a blockchain platform from any cloud system. Users can then consult data integrity through a microservice, acting as an intermediate server that carries out a set of verification steps within the blockchain, which confirms the integrity of a previously stored log. Our architecture takes advantage of the blockchain strength concerning integrity, providing a traceability track of the stored logs. A prototype system and a case study were implemented based on the proposed architecture. Our experimental results show that the proposed decentralized architecture can be adapted to cloud existing systems that were born without blockchain technology and require a modular and scalable audit characteristic

<i>RootLogChain</i>: Registering Log-Events in a Blockchain for Audit Issues from the Creation of the Root

Logging system activities are required to provide credibility and confidence in the systems used by an organization. Logs in computer systems must be secured from the root user so that they are true and fair. This paper introduces RootLogChain, a blockchain-based audit mechanism that is built upon a security protocol to create both a root user in a blockchain network and the first log; from there, all root events are stored as logs within a standard blockchain mechanism. RootLogChain provides security constructs so as to be deployed in a distributed context over a hostile environment, such as the internet. We have developed a prototype based on a microservice architecture, validating it by executing different stress proofs in two scenarios: one with compliant agents and the other without. In such scenarios, several compliant and non-compliant agents try to become a root and register the events within the blockchain. Non-compliant agents simulate eavesdropper entities that do not follow the rules of the protocol. Our experiments show that the mechanism guarantees the creation of one and only one root user, integrity, and authenticity of the transactions; it also stores all events generated by the root within a blockchain. In addition, for audit issues, the traceability of the transaction logs can be consulted by the root

A Cloud Microservices Architecture for Data Integrity Verifiability Based on Blockchain

The current digital age, mainly characterized by an economy based upon information technology, demands a data integrity service, even more so because organizations and companies are migrating their services over the cloud. This is not a simple task; it is cumbersome since traditional schemes in databases could be subject to modifications. However, it can be solved using blockchain technology. This paper provides a data integrity verifiability architecture for cloud systems based on blockchain. The architecture provides a mechanism to store events (as logs) within a blockchain platform from any cloud system. Users can then consult data integrity through a microservice, acting as an intermediate server that carries out a set of verification steps within the blockchain, which confirms the integrity of a previously stored log. Our architecture takes advantage of the blockchain strength concerning integrity, providing a traceability track of the stored logs. A prototype system and a case study were implemented based on the proposed architecture. Our experimental results show that the proposed decentralized architecture can be adapted to cloud existing systems that were born without blockchain technology and require a modular and scalable audit characteristic