Soil organic matter (SOM) supports fertility, aggregation, water retention, and carbon storage. Therefore, mapping its vulnerability is crucial in tropical watersheds under intensive agriculture. In Colombia, few spatially explicit and operational frameworks integrate intrinsic soil properties and climatic-topographic factors into a single expert-weighted index. This study aimed to operationalize and apply a multi-criteria index based on Geographic Information System (GIS) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP): the Soil Organic Matter Loss Vulnerability Index (SOM-LVI) to assess spatial vulnerability to SOM loss in the Tuluá and La Paila river watersheds, Valle del Cauca, Colombia. The methodology employed consisted of integrating six parameters weighted through AHP: clay content, slope, Holdridge life zones, temperature, precipitation, and soil pH, using 1:25000 cartography and raster layers of climate and relief. SOM-LVI values ranged from 0.19 to 0.79 across 135426 ha. The results showed that the High (49.6%) and Moderate (41.0%) vulnerability classes jointly represented 90.6% of the study area, while low vulnerability covered 9.4%. Spatially, hotspots were concentrated in middle and lower sectors on dissected reliefs, whereas forested headwaters showed lower vulnerability. High vulnerability predominated within Alfisols and Mollisols, whereas Andisols, Inceptisols, and Histosols were predominantly classified as Moderate or Low. Finally, it is concluded that the SOM-LVI provides a replicable methodology for prioritizing management practices that protect SOM where vulnerability is greatest, although its application depends on available cartography, expert weights, and the underlying climatic and topographic variables.
La tecnología Blockchain está emergiendo como una herramienta clave para el comercio de energía peer-to-peer (P2P) al ofrecer un sistema descentralizado, transparente y seguro para el registro y validación de transacciones. Su naturaleza distribuida permite superar desafíos relacionados con la confianza, la seguridad de la información y la eliminación de intermediarios en los mercados energéticos. No obstante, debido a la reciente adopción de Blockchain, aún son limitados los estudios que orienten su implementación práctica en este tipo de mercados. Este trabajo tuvo como objetivo presentar una guía técnica para el despliegue de una red Blockchain que facilite el registro seguro de transacciones en escenarios de comercio energético P2P. La metodología propuesta se basó en el análisis e identificación de herramientas disponibles para el desarrollo de la red, considerando factores técnicos como escalabilidad, velocidad de transacción y tipo de red (pública, privada o permisionada). A partir de estos criterios, se seleccionó la plataforma más adecuada y se desarrolló una prueba piloto en la red Polygon Amoy. Como resultado, la prueba piloto realizada permitió evaluar la viabilidad técnica inicial del sistema y se complementó con una guía práctica que facilita la replicación y el despliegue de contratos inteligentes. Asimismo, se documentó el proceso de verificación de los bloques generados, incluyendo información crítica como precios, cantidades de energía comercializada y operaciones no ejecutadas. En conclusión, los resultados demuestran la viabilidad funcional a nivel piloto y sientan bases metodológicas para futuras implementaciones de Blockchain orientadas al comercio P2P en microrredes y sistemas de distribución activa.
Dysphagia is a syndrome related to swallowing impairment, which is a complex process that involves precise neuromuscular coordination and shares anatomical structures with the speech production process. Subsequently, the presence of dysphagia has been associated with speech alterations. The purpose of this work was to explore speech changes in patients with functional oropharyngeal dysphagia, before and after swallowing tasks. The recordings of 77 patients were analyzed and hand-crafted features were extracted from dimensions of phonation, articulation, and prosody. Feature selection was performed using AUC-ROC and hypothesis tests. k-Means, agglomerative clustering, and Gaussian-Mixture Models were used for clustering in the reduced feature space, using ten binarized clinical variables as comparison scenarios. The quality of the clusters was evaluated with the silhouette score, the Davies-Bouldin Index (BDI), and the Adjusted-Rank Index (ARI) for each scenario. The results showed good intra-cluster quality (silhouette ≥ 0.7 and BDI ≤ 0.2) for cough after swallowing, alteration in carrying the lips to the sides, and altered tongue strength, but only in speech recordings post-swallowing. Otherwise, a poor inter-quality cluster was found for both pre and post-swallowing tasks in all clinical variables, and patients with the less frequent condition tended to be grouped in the larger cluster. Additionally, the spatial distribution of the pre and post-swallowing features changed considerably. These findings suggest that swallowing tasks influence speech production in patients with dysphagia and that unsupervised clustering-based analysis of speech features could provide complementary insights for clinical assessment. More studies with larger and more balanced cohorts are needed to validate these results and explore their potential diagnostic applications.
Environmental degradation has accelerated as a consequence of rapid industrialization. Among the factors that contribute to this deterioration are the production of ceramic tiles and waste generation. Ceramic tile production has become consolidated on the global market, growing at annual rates of nearly 8.5%, while waste generation has increased at an estimated annual rate of 11.7%. Consequently, recent research has focused on developing waste-management strategies to mitigate these impacts. This study evaluated the performance of an unglazed extruded ceramic product incorporating coconut fiber into its ceramic matrix. The material was evaluated at coconut fiber contents of 5%, 10%, and 20% by weight, and fired in a downdraft (beehive) kiln at 950 ºC, 1000 ºC, and 1050 °C, thermal profiles commonly used by the ceramic industry in Norte de Santander. The methodology included the characterization of the mineralogical, chemical, physical, thermal, and technological properties of the raw materials, ceramic pastes, and fired products. The results revealed limitations in the mechanical and technological performance of ceramic tiles. Nevertheless, the incorporation of 5% and 10% coconut fiber combined with firing temperatures above 1000 °C established conditions that favored the manufacturing products with high regional demand and complying with national requirements for interior wall and floor coverings in low-traffic environments. In addition, mixtures containing up to 20% coconut fiber achieved the regulatory requirements for wall tiles. Overall, the findings demonstrate the potential for incorporating agro-industrial waste into conventional ceramic pastes while maintaining acceptable ceramic, mechanical, and structural performance.
Los hidrogeles basados en biopolímeros representan una alternativa sustentable para mitigar el impacto del estrés hídrico en la agricultura contemporánea. Con el objetivo de evaluar su potencial, esta investigación abordó la síntesis, caracterización estructural y desempeño agronómico de hidrogeles de quitosano entrecruzados con glutaraldehído (1 %, 2,5 % y 5 % v/v) como enmienda edáfica y sustrato de germinación. Metodológicamente, mediante espectroscopía de infrarrojos (FTIR, por sus siglas en inglés) se confirmó la formación de enlaces tipo imina (1637,88 cm⁻¹), implementando una técnica de fragmentación y sellado químico por inmersión secundaria para optimizar la estabilidad mecánica del hidrogel, y cuyos efectos se validaron estadísticamente mediante un ANOVA de dos vías. Los resultados demostraron una interacción significativa entre la densidad de la red tridimensional y la difusión de agua. La formulación al 1 % v/v maximizó el hinchamiento hídrico (838 %), mientras que la de 5 % v/v lo restringió (305 %). Agronómicamente, la incorporación del hidrogel en suelos xerófilos para el cultivo de Carica papaya incrementó la retención de humedad en un 82 % y elevó la capacidad de intercambio catiónico a 2,18 meq/100 g a los 60 días. Asimismo, funcionó como soporte hidropónico autónomo para Phaseolus vulgaris, Lens culinaris, Solanum tuberosum y Allium sativum. Finalmente, se determinó que, bajo condiciones de estrés hídrico extremo, el hidrogel actúa como un amortiguador hídrico y nutricional eficiente que prolonga los ciclos vitales de las plántulas entre 28 y 77 días antes de manifestar clorosis foliar, consolidándose como una enmienda viable para optimizar la productividad y fertilidad edáfica en regiones áridas.
