Colombia's small and medium-size exporters and their support systems

The authors evaluate the role of dynamic small and medium-size manufacturing enterprises and entrepreneurs (SMEs) in Colombia's development. They also evaluate SME policy in Colombia, especially as it affects the country's export potential. The SME sector has received little attention from Colombia's policymakers despite its substantial weight in manufacturing, its importance as a seedbed for important future companies, and its demonstrated capacity to grow rapidly under favorable circumstances. After the recent shift to a more open economy, people are asking how the sector will fare under the more intense competition to come. Recent changes in Colombia reflect strong pressure from those outside the traditional elite - especially the somewhat marginalized class of SMEs - to play a greater role in the political process. The authors interviewed entrepreneurs from 124 SMEs - all of them exporters - in the garments, leather goods, and nonelectrical machinery sectors. Some had been exporting for many years; many had begun to do so only in the late 1980s. Firms typically employed up to several hundred workers but average size at start-up was small (a median of eight workers). The leather goods industry is mainly export-oriented; the other two sell mainly in the domestic market, although all but a few were exporting. Nearly three-quarters of entrepreneurs had some university training (90 percent in the machinery industry). Most exports were to nearby or easily accessible (same-language) countries. International marketing was handled mainly by the private sector, but the public sector and other nonfirm organizations play a facilitating role in that process, especially for very small firms and first-time exporters. Trade fairs have been especially useful to the leather goods and nonelectrical machinery industries. Collective support mechanisms - mainly industry associations, especially for smaller firms and the leather goods industry - have helped firms develop technological capabilities (in finishing and design, for example, workplace organization, the use of sophisticated equipment). Education and training - especially"learning by doing"- have helped improve productivity.Public Health Promotion,Small and Medium Size Enterprises,Microfinance,Small Scale Enterprise,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Small Scale Enterprise,Private Participation in Infrastructure,Microfinance,Environmental Economics&Policies

A Simple Dynamic Model of Credit and Aggregate Demand

The purpose of the paper is to present a tractable model of an old topic which is becoming more important in macroeconomics: the link between financial structure and economic activity.Aggregate Demand, Fiscal Policy, Monetary Policy, moral hazard, adverse selection, suuply of credit, reserves.

Diseño y construcción de un inversor trifasico tipo puente con transistores

El proyecto consiste en el diseño y construcción de un convertidor DC/AC trifásico, el mismo que será utilizado como equipo didáctico en los laboratorios de la FIEC. Dicho equipo puede emplearse en el control de velocidad de un motor de corriente alterna, y el método a emplearse para el control es por variación de frecuencia. El equipo en sí consta de tres partes: circuito de control, circuito de fuerza y circuito de acoplamiento. En el circuito de control, se utiliza un arreglo especial del integrado monostable 555 el cual emitirá los pulsos de reloj a frecuencia variables. Dichos pulsos llegan a un circuito especial de Flip Flops JK (ring counter) el cual desfasará las señales que llegarán a los transistores de potencia (los cuales forman el circuito de fuerza). Para enlazar las señales de control y de fuerza hacemos uso de optoacopladores (circuito de acoplamiento)

Thermal dosimetry for bladder hyperthermia treatment. An overview.

The urinary bladder is a fluid-filled organ. This makes, on the one hand, the internal surface of the bladder wall relatively easy to heat and ensures in most cases a relatively homogeneous temperature distribution; on the other hand the variable volume, organ motion, and moving fluid cause artefacts for most non-invasive thermometry methods, and require additional efforts in planning accurate thermal treatment of bladder cancer. We give an overview of the thermometry methods currently used and investigated for hyperthermia treatments of bladder cancer, and discuss their advantages and disadvantages within the context of the specific disease (muscle-invasive or non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer) and the heating technique used. The role of treatment simulation to determine the thermal dose delivered is also discussed. Generally speaking, invasive measurement methods are more accurate than non-invasive methods, but provide more limited spatial information; therefore, a combination of both is desirable, preferably supplemented by simulations. Current efforts at research and clinical centres continue to improve non-invasive thermometry methods and the reliability of treatment planning and control software. Due to the challenges in measuring temperature across the non-stationary bladder wall and surrounding tissues, more research is needed to increase our knowledge about the penetration depth and typical heating pattern of the various hyperthermia devices, in order to further improve treatments. The ability to better determine the delivered thermal dose will enable clinicians to investigate the optimal treatment parameters, and consequentially, to give better controlled, thus even more reliable and effective, thermal treatments

First-principles study of electronic and optical properties of two-dimensional magnetic chromium trihalides

The emergence of ferromagnetic order in monolayer two-dimensional (2D) crystals represents a significant advancement in 2D materials. Among these, the chromium trihalides, CrI_3, CrBr_3, and CrCl_3, have garnered considerable attention as the most extensively investigated magnetic 2D crystals to date. In this thesis I aimed to study the electronic and optical properties in Chromium trihalides by using Density Functional Theory (DFT) and Time-dependent Density Functional Theory (TDDFT), respectively. More specifically, DFT is employed to calculate the ground-state properties, while TDDFT is used to determine the excited-state properties. Optically tuned, screened, and range-separated hybrid (OT-SRSH) exchange-correlation functionals are exploited to accurately capture exciton binding in these 2D magnets. First, I focus on the electronic structures and exciton energies of pristine CrI_3, CrBr_3, and CrCl_3 to adjust parameters in the hybrid functional by reproducing existing data from experiments and GW-BSE calculations. Then I focused on heterostructures of Chromium Trihalides, specifically CrI_3 Br_3 and CrI_3 Cl_3, and variations of the stoichiometry of their halide atoms. The dependence of electronic and optical properties on the composition of these heterostructures are determined, including charge density, density of states, exciton energy, and oscillator strengths

A point of view on genetic resources and plant breeding

Biodiversity is the set of living organisms that make up our battered planet and their interactions with the environment. It is made up of the Kingdoms: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, and Monera. It provides the energy resources necessary to sustain the planet and our civilization; it is the basis of agriculture, source of all crops, and species of domestic livestock since the beginning of human civilization.Instituto de GenéticaFil: Escandon, Alejandro Salvio. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Genética; Argentin

Machine-Vision-Based Pose Estimation System Using Sensor Fusion for Autonomous Satellite Grappling

When capturing a non-cooperative satellite during an on-orbit satellite servicing mission, the position and orientation (pose) of the satellite with respect to the servicing vessel is required in order to guide the robotic arm of the vessel towards the satellite. The main objective of this research is the development of a machine vision-based pose estimation system for capturing a non-cooperative satellite. The proposed system finds the satellite pose using three types of natural geometric features: circles, lines and points, and it merges data from two monocular cameras and three different algorithms (one for each type of geometric feature) to increase the robustness of the pose estimation. It is assumed that the satellite has an interface ring (which is used to attach a satellite to the launch vehicle) and that the cameras are mounted on the robot end effector which contains the capture tool to grapple the satellite. The three algorithms are based on a feature extraction and detection scheme to provide the detected geometric features on the camera images that belong to the satellite, which its geometry is assumed to be known. Since the projection of a circle on the image plane is an ellipse, an ellipse detection system is used to find the 3D-coordinates of the center of the interface ring and its normal vector using its corresponding detected ellipse on the image plane. The sensor and data fusion is performed in two steps. In the first step, a pose solver system finds pose using the conjugate gradient method to optimize a cost function and to reduce the re-projection error of the detected features, which reduces the pose estimation error. In the second step, an extended Kalman filter merges data from the pose solver and the ellipse detection system, and gives the final estimated pose. The inputs of the pose estimation system are the camera images and the outputs are the position and orientation of the satellite with respect to the end-effector where the cameras are mounted. Virtual and real simulations using a full-scale realistic satellite-mockup and a 7DOF robotic manipulator were performed to evaluate the system performance. Two different lighting conditions and three scenarios each with a different set of features were used. Tracking of the satellite was performed successfully. The total translation error is between 25 mm and 50 mm and the total rotation error is between 2 deg and 3 deg when the target is at 0.7 m from the end effector

New measuring techniques using holographic and speckle interferometric recording

Electronic and photographic interferometric recording, and their combination, result in several novel optical measuring techniques. The interferometric properties of holographic and speckle processes in these techniques encompass fields such as lapse time, real time and time average holographic interferometry, two-wavelength and multiple-index speckle contouring, figure (moire) interference, photographic bleach processes and electronic processing. Each of these fields is analysed and conclusions are drawn in their interaction with the proposed techniques. A clear and simple approach to optical wave theory is intended with emphasis in scalar wave theory. [Continues.

Upstream healthcare: Values training for low-income children using baccalaureate nursing students and community youth

This presentation will describe teaching strategies employed in introducing nursing students, in their community health rotation, to upstream health care delivery and its impact on public health nursing. Student nurses and vulnerable community youth created, developed, and presented stories focused on individual character strength values

A look at polyploidy and plant breeding

Polyploidization is a process that generates genetic variability and therefore one of the engines of biological evolution. Since polyploidization produces important changes in the phenotype, mainly an increase in the size of the organs (i.e.: flowers and fruits), it is also a very important and powerful tool for plant improvement. Despite its intense use in breeding programs for various species, very little is known so far about the nature of this phenomenon. This work presents a brief review of the results obtained by the use of this tool in plant breeding and also raises some reflections on its mechanism of action.Instituto de GenéticaFil: Iannicelli, Jesica. Universidad Nacional de Hurlingham; ArgentinaFil: Escandon, Alejandro Salvio. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Genética; Argentin