Reconciling agility and discipline in COTS selection processes

Currently, information systems are mainly built by integrating or customizing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components acquired or licensed from the marketplace. The processes necessary to steer a suitable acquisition are different from traditional software development processes. Among them, we are interested in the process of selection of COTS components. COTS selection requires discipline to coordinate the selection team and the set of new activities that are necessary to support a successful selection. The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) contains important guidelines for process improvement, and specifiesPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Mecanismos inmunológicos implicados en la patología del asma alérgica

El asma es una enfermedad que afecta a personas de todaslas edades. La OMS estima que en la actualidad afecta a 235millones personas en todo el mundo. Para Colombia se estimaque la prevalencia de esta enfermedad es aproximadamente del12%. El asma se caracteriza por una inflamación de las víasrespiratorias y por cambios estructurales en los tejidos de lasmismas: como hiperplasia epitelial de las células caliciformes,depósito de colágeno subepitelial e hipertrofia del músculoliso. La inmunopatología del asma alérgica involucra tanto larespuesta humoral como la celular, que colectivamente llevana un estado de hiperreactividad de la vía respiratoria (AHR).Las células que, en el momento, están implicadas en la cascadainflamatoria del asma atópica son: células epiteliales de la víaaérea, las diferentes subpoblaciones de células T y B, mastocitos,células dendríticas, eosinófilos, basófilos, macrófagos, célulasiNKT y plaquetas, además de la red de citoquinas, quimioquinasy señales co-estimulatorias y regulatorias correspondientesa cada una de las subpoblaciones celulares que orquestaneste proceso. Este artículo revisa algunos de los procesoscelulares y moleculares más importantes e implicados en lainmunopatogénesis del asma atópica

Estudio ágil aplicado a los métodos de selección de componentes commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)

Currently organizations tend to construct their Information Systems with components acquired or licensed from specific segments of the market. This is a growing trend in the industry because only a few companies have the resources to compete with the constant evolution of the market. On the other hand, the use of agile methods like eXtreme Programming (XP) within the development context has increased in the industry and the research community. There are several methods of selection within the COTS context that are either based on waterfall processes or iterative developments adapted to specific business contexts. Not much has been studied about the agility of the methods proposals to select and to integrate COTS to the system architecture or the possible extrapolation of the agile concepts to the COTS domain. This proposal aims in this direction. It tries to extrapolate the agile world concepts, such as agile values and agile principles, to the world of the COTS. It is the starting point for a formal proposal of study of the agility within context COTS.Postprint (published version

Roles and responsibilities for COTS components selection processes

Information systems tend nowadays to be designed by integrating or customizing Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components acquired or licensed from the marketplace. There are currently many methods that contribute to select these components. The application of COTS selection methods result in processes that are different from usual development processes, yielding to new activities and responsibilities that should be covered by interactions of specialized roles. However it may be observed that these methods do not put emphasis neither on the identification of these roles, nor on their subsequent interactions, nor on their combination to form a selection team. The contribution of this work is based on identifying and defining the roles that take place in COTS selection processes, their interactions and their responsibilities. We use a goal-oriented approach, the i* notation, and a framework to model the engineering process, the OPEN Process Framework (OPF), with the purpose of issuing a well-defined work team that can adapt itself to the internal processes of a particular organization. We apply our generic proposal to a particular case, a COTS-based development life-cycle based on the agile principles and individuals interactions as defined in eXtreme Programming (XP).Postprint (published version

Influence of the Driving Cycle, Type of Vehicle and Travel Conditions in the Cinematic Variables of the Routes in Urban Buses. Case Study Ibarra-Ecuador

Latin American cities have pollution and traffic problems due to the lack of research and planning in the transport sector. In Ecuador, the characteristics of the transport fleets and their kinematics in the city have not been determined. This study analyzes in detail the kinematic characteristics of each public transport route in the city of Ibarra-Ecuador using GPS georeferencing equipment for each second of travel. 22 urban bus routes were monitored evaluating 186 buses in 832 trips, where it was determined that the average speed, acceleration and deceleration depend mainly on three factors: route, city sector and vehicle model. Other factors such as operator, age of driver, travel times and time slot did not show greater significance in influencing the kinematic variables under study, so it is not considered within the research study

Range expansion of the genus Sicydium (Teleostei: Gobiidae) to coastal mountain streams of southwestern Ecuador and possibly northwestern Peru

We report collections of several specimens of Sicydium in 2013 and 2014 from the Jubones and Santa Rosa Rivers in southwestern Ecuador. These collections substantially expand the known range of the genus southward. The specimens are tentatively identified as Sicydium cf. rosenbergii based on their morphology. Small differences in morphology among specimens from the two rivers are noted, as are discrepancies with the type description. A museum database search uncovered two additional records of the genus south of their previously recognized range including one record from northwestern Peru

RiSD: a methodology for building i* strategic dependency models

Goal-oriented models have become a consolidated type of artefact in various software and knowledge engineering activities. Several languages exist for representing such type of models but there is a lack of associated methodologies for guiding their construction up to the necessary level of detail. In this paper we present RiSD, a methodology for building Strategic Dependency (SD) models in the i* notation. RiSD is defined in a prescriptive way to reduce uncertainness when constructing the model. RiSD also tackles two fundamental issues: on the one hand, it tends to reduce the average size of the resulting models and, on the other hand, it allows including some traceability relationships in the resulting models. As a result, we may say that RiSD increases the understandability of goal-oriented models whilst improving all construction.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Improving glass-fiber epoxy composites via interlayer toughening with polyacrylonitrile/multiwalled carbon nanotubes electrospun fibers

The development of innovative engineered epoxy composites aiming to manufacture cost-efficient materials with reduced weight and enhanced physical properties remains as a current industrial challenge. In this work we report an original procedure for manufacturing glass-fiber epoxy reinforced nanocomposites (GFECs) by employing electrospun fiber-mats as a reinforcing phase. These fibers have been produced from polyacrylonitrile and multiwalled carbon nanotubes solutions. Optimal protocols are designed by combining Taguchi method with the morphological, structural and mechanical properties obtained by scanning electron microscopy, profilometry and tensile tests. It is demonstrated that GFECs fabricated using GF800 glass fiber show an improvement/enhancement of the mechanical properties with a fracture strain up to 500¿MPa (around 20% higher than the non-reinforced epoxy composite counterpart). It is also shown that GFECs fabricated using GF3M glass fiber exhibited a reduction of the roughness up to 56%, which corresponds with a roughness improvement from N8 to N7 following the guidelines provided by the ISO 1302. These results suggest that this type of nanocomposites would be suitable to be used in the aeronautics and automotive industries.This work was financially supported by the “Convocatoria de Ayudas a la Realización de Proyectos de Grupos de Investigación 2020-2021” of the Universidad Católica de Murcia (UCAM), Spain, Reference: PMFI-12/21. Pavel Ryzhakov, Jordi Pons-Prats, and Christian Narváez- Muñoz would also like to acknowledge the support of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades of Spain via the “Severo Ochoa Programme” for Centres of Excellence in R&D (reference: CEX2018-000797-S) given to the International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE). The work of Christian Narváez- Muñoz was financially supported by the “Severo Ochoa PhD Scholarship” Reference: PRE2020-096632. Pavel Ryzhakov and Jordi Pons-Prats are Serra Hunter fellows.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

El juego como estrategia pedagógica en entornos virtuales de aprendizaje para docentes en aula 2020 – 2022

The use of games in learning environments has become increasingly important and more frequent. There has been a perception that the game is only for distraction or entertainment, but that concept has been changing and even more so now with the use of tools. The purpose of this review article is to explain the importance of gaming as a pedagogical strategy in virtual environments to promote active learning in students. Information was collected in the following databases SCOOPUS, SCIELO, GOOGLE ACADEMIC, REDALYC and other virtual libraries. As for the results of the 2954 articles reviewed, we examined 1494, after eliminating duplicates 726 remained, subsequently those evaluated in full text for eligibility were 34, the excluded articles we filtered out 24. There were no language restrictions in all the articles chosen, in the end 10 articles remained. Conclusions: After the analysis obtained in the different databases we can mention that the game helps to develop the cognitive system of the student and with those we should take advantage so that they become more involved in the technological field and in turn take advantage of this to increase their knowledge.El uso de juegos en entornos de aprendizaje se ha hecho cada vez más importante y a su vez más frecuente. Se ha tenido la percepción de que el juego es solo para distraerse o entretenerse, pero ese concepto ha ido cambiando y mucho más ahora con el uso de herramientas. El propósito de este artículo de revisión es explicar sobre la importancia del juego como estrategia pedagógica en los entornos virtuales para fomentar el aprendizaje activo en los estudiantes. Se recopiló la información en las siguientes bases de datos SCOOPUS, SCIELO, GOOGLE ACADÉMICO, REDALYC y otras bibliotecas virtuales. En cuanto a los resultados de los 2954 artículos revisados, examinamos 1494, después de eliminar los duplicados quedaron 726, posteriormente los evaluados en textos completos para la elegibilidad fueron 34, los artículos excluidos filtramos 24. No hubo restricciones de idioma en todos los artículos elegidos, al final quedaron 10 artículos. Conclusiones: Luego del análisis obtenido en las distintas bases de datos podemos mencionar que el juego ayuda a desarrollar el sistema cognitivo del estudiante y con esos debemos de aprovechar para que ellos se involucren más en el campo tecnológico y a su vez aprovechar esta ventaja para incrementar su conocimiento

INTERTIDAL BIODIVERSITY IN CENTRAL CHILE REVISTA CHILENA DE HISTORIA NATURAL

ABSTRACT Along the coast of central Chile, geographic trends of diversity have been inferred from literature compilations and museum collections based on species range limits for some taxonomic groups. However, spatially-intensive fieldbased assessments of macrobenthic species richness are largely missing. Over the course of a multiyear study (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005), we characterized latitudinal patterns of rocky intertidal diversity at 18 sites along the coast of central Chile (29-36º S). At each site, the number of sessile and mobile macrobenthic species was quantified in 0.25 m 2 quadrats. Two estimators of local (alpha) diversity were used: observed local species richness, calculated from the asymptote of a species-rarefaction curve, and the Chao2 index, which takes into account the effect of rare species on estimates of local richness. We identified a total of 71 species belonging to 66 genera for a total of 86 taxa. The most diverse groups were herbivorous mollusks (27 taxa) and macroalgae (43 taxa). Diversity showed a complex spatial pattern with areas of high species richness interspersed with areas of low richness. In accordance with previous work, we found no trend in the number of herbivorous mollusks and an inverse and significant latitudinal gradient in the number of algal species. Our results highlight the need for taxonomically diverse assessments of biodiversity of the dominant taxa that conform intertidal communities