Family-Farm Therapy: An Urban Therapy Clinic to Address The Multifaceted Needs of Multi-Stressed Families and their Surrounding Communities

Family-Farm Therapy incorporates a therapeutic clinic within an urban farming community site, and focuses on multi-stressed family systems and the larger community system. The goal is for systemic change within the family and the community by creating positive relationships and personal acceptance. Farming has traditionally been a family endeavor which makes it a unique environment to be utilized as metaphors for family systems, their interactions, behaviors, and structure. Multi-stressed families have socioeconomic hurdles that complicate their ability to adjust to change and crisis in their family. Farming addresses such hurdles by offering economic sustenance, increased physical health, and community acceptance. Family-Farm Therapy incorporates the benefits of farming to directly address socioeconomic hurdles as part of the therapeutic plan. This literature review will explore other out-of-the-box therapeutic applications that have demonstrated clinical significance and/or research effectiveness, as a foundation for Family-Farm Therapy’s innovative contribution to the application of family therapy

Evaluation of Intangible Assets and Best Practices in a Medium-sized Port Community

AbstractThis paper analyses the main factors involved in the knowledge management of different actors participating in a Chilean port community. The intangible assets participating in the creation of value of the port community, which are expressed in ideas, attitudes, perceptions, experiences, information and knowledge management, are evaluated and classified according to community members’ core competencies. Then, the current situation of public institutions and companies participating in the port community is diagnosed utilizing interviews to experts and relevant actors. The role of the intellectual, structural, and social capital is examined in relation to strategic statements present in the missions of public and private port system companies. The results of the assessment enable to identify the main critical factors in knowledge management, transference, dissemination, collaboration and team work, storage, and best practices. In particular, the Conversation System stage of the Primary Model is analyzed and evaluated, as well as its causes, by actors of the port community and experts. Initiatives fostering collective work and encouraging conversations are proposed. Some of the best practices developed by the port community to create and disseminate stakeholders’ knowledge are presented. Also, a set of knowledge management indicators and indexes is developed and presented

A Fuzzy Control Heuristic Applied to Non-linear Dynamic System Using a Fuzzy Knowledge Representation

This paper presents the design of a fuzzy control heuristic that can be applied for modeling nonlinear dynamic systems using a fuzzy knowledge representation. Nonlinear dynamic systems have been modeled traditionally on the basis of connections between the subsystems that compose it. Nevertheless, this model design does not consider some of the following problems: existing dynamics between the subsystems; order and priority of the connection between subsystems; degrees of influence or causality between subsystems; particular state of each subsystem and state of the system on the basis of the combination of the diverse states of the subsystems; positive or negative influences between subsystems. In this context, the main objective of this proposal is to manage the whole system state by managing the state combination of the subsystems involved. In the proposed design the diverse states of subsystems at different levels are represented by a knowledge base matrix of fuzzy intervals (KBMFI). This type of structure is a fuzzy hypercube that provides facilities operations like: insert, delete, and switching. It also allows Boolean operations between different KBMFI and inferences. Each subsystem in a specific level and its connectors are characterized by factors with fuzzy attributes represented by membership functions. Existing measures the degree of influence among the different levels are obtained (negatives, positives). In addition, the system state is determined based on the combination of the statements of the subsystems (stable, oscillatory, attractor, chaos). It allows introducing the dynamic effects in the calculation of each output level. The control and search of knowledge patterns are made by means of a fuzzy control heuristic. Finally, an application to the co-ordination of the activities among different levels of the operation of an underground mine is developed and discussed

Performance analysis of the Level control with inverse response by using particle swarm optimization

Boiler is an important utility system to support operations in the industry. The control of water level in the steam drum is a complicated task due to the non-minimum phase (NMP), which possibly will cause instability to the controlled water level in the steam drum. Process identification and controller design are difficult tasks for the steam drum because of non-minimum phase. Following the previous literature, this paper proposed process identification to 3rd order transfer function and optimization of Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) tunings of the water level by using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). A Graphical User Interface (GUI) has been developed to provide a direct platform to deal with these tasks. The result of PSO is compared with other tuning methods in terms of performance indicator and index. An analysis of the performance curve in 3-dimension graphs is also presented to visualize the output performance of various proportional and integral gain settings. The study has concluded that PSO provided better PI tunings for the best control of the Heat Exchanger function in the LOOP-PRO software

Homeostatic Control of Sustainable Energy Grid Applied to Natural Disasters

According to seismologists Chile has yet to face another big earthquake in the very near future, yet the country remains largely unprepared against massive electric power systems brake-down. The problem lies in the centralized electric power systems and the lack of adequate technologies and back-up/emergency power systems for disas- ter recovery. The flaws that are built into the very fabric of the presently centralized power systems were on full display in the February 27th earthquake in Chile. Nowhere it becomes more evident that hugely centralized power generation and distribution systems are extremely vulnerable and ineffective to disruptions from natural disasters, human error or other calamities. The large power networks that once proved very efficient and secure, are now at the center of discussion fueling the need for decentral- ization and the rapid growth of distributed generation (DG). Highly decentralized, diversified and DG-oriented energy matrix is notoriously much better suited to with- stand these disasters. In centralized electric power grids, servicing large metropolitan areas, albeit with some but limited differentiation in service, can only be on or off, so either everyone gets power or no one does. This makes recovering power service in an emergency situation a much more difficult task. On the other hand, decentralized power systems (DPS) reduce the obstacles to disaster preparation and recovery by allowing the focus to shift first to critical infrastructure and then to flow outward to less integrated outlets. A DG-based model for a smart micro-grid based on hybrid electric power systems (HEPS) using both renewable energy technologies (RET) and conventional power generation units is presented. The hybrid energy system may be portable or fixed in one place, highly reliable, easy to assemble, modular, flexible and cost-effective solution, that is ready-to-run and go to where it is needed to supply power in natural disaster

The Challenge of Designing Nervous and Endocrine Systems in Robots

We discuss in conceptual terms the feasibility of designing a Nervous System and an Endocrine System in a robot and to reflect upon the bionic issues associated with such highly complex automatons. The emulation of biological phenomenon in artificial systems, both nervous and endocrine imitation in a mechatronic automaton is an attractive proposition as a mechanism of organic integration. The ability of living organisms to maintain their internal organization in spite of external changes, encourages attempts to imitate such achievements in devices. The complexity of the network sensors-integrators-effectors and the proportion of internal fluids must be increased when seeking the homeostasis of the robot from mechatronic design to bionic design

A Symmetry-based Validator and Refinement System for Pedestrian Detection in Far Infrared Images

Abstract — This paper presents a refinement and validation stage for a tetra-vision based pedestrian detection system. The complete system is based on the use of both visible and far infrared cameras; in an initial phase it produces a list of areas of attention in the images which can contain pedestrians. Starting from the assumption that human shapes are mostly symmetrical and feature a number of vertical edges, the symmetry and edge density content of these areas is computed. The results is used to filter the list, discarding areas of attention that feature a scarce symmetry content. At the same time, the size of each area is refined to match the symmetry content and therefore to better adapt to human shapes. Moreover, this module can be successfully used to partition areas that contains two or more human shapes. I

Fatty acid profiles of cultured hippocampus hippocampus trunk muscles and potential nutritional value

Syngnathids (seahorses, pipefishes and seadragons) are an attractive resource for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Despite few scientific studies supporting seahorse nutritional benefits, they are believed to possess medicinal properties that enhance human health. The European short-snout seahorse Hippocampus hippocampus is classified as Data Deficient by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Nevertheless, there are increasing records of this species being illegally captured and traded to supply TCM. This study investigated the fatty acid (FA) profiles of the trunk muscles of cultured female and male H. hippocampus, to assess sex and intraspecific variation, as well as their potential nutritional value. The contents of crude lipid (4.05 +/- 2.15% dry weight, DW in females and 2.82 +/- 1.48% DW in males) and phospholipid (8.23 +/- 3.34 mu g mg(-1) DW in females and 7.91 +/- 2.36 mu g mg(-1) DW in males) were not significantly different between the two sexes. The absolute FA compositions of H. hippocampus trunk muscles revealed higher mean values for FA 16:0, 18:0, 18:1 n-9 and 22:6 n-3 (DHA), in both female (2.82 +/- 1.11, 1.81 +/- 0.89, 0.90 +/- 0.41 and 0.93 +/- 0.35 mu g mg(-1) DW, respectively) and male specimens (1.99 +/- 0.95, 1.52 +/- 0.78, 0.74 +/- 0.44 and 0.80 +/- 0.41 mu g mg(-1) DW, respectively). In terms of FA classes, saturated fatty acids (SFA) showed the highest absolute value of the total pool of FA, for both sexes (4.73 +/- 1.94 mu g mg(-1) DW in females and 3.58 +/- 1.76 mu g mg(-1) DW in males). Males tended to exhibit a more suitable profile for human nutrition, displaying a lower atherogenic index (AI) and thrombogenic index (TI). The relative composition of H. hippocampus trunk muscles followed the patterns of seahorse species valued in TCM, with DHA ranking amongst the PUFA with higher mean relative abundances (12.0% of total FA). While seahorse FA profiles may be of interest in terms of their nutritional value for humans, only specimens originating from sustainable production practices should be traded and the conservation of their populations in the wild should continue to be a global priority.LA/P/0101/2020; 16-02-01-FMP-54; LA/P/0094/2020info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio