Plant parasitic nematodes - problems related to clover and organic farming

Organic farming puts new and exciting challenges to the science of nematology. The occurrence of plant parasitic nematodes in organic farming systems needs to be investigated further. Good management strategies for nematodes should include monitoring of the composition and density of nematode populations. This would allow for increased yields and better sustainability of organic farming

A first approach to an axiomatic model of multi-measures

We establish an axiomatic model of multi-measures, capturing some classes of measures studied in the fuzzy sets literature, where they are applied to only one or two arguments

Named Entity Recognition in Electronic Health Records Using Transfer Learning Bootstrapped Neural Networks

Neural networks (NNs) have become the state of the art in many machine learning applications, especially in image and sound processing [1]. The same, although to a lesser extent [2,3], could be said in natural language processing (NLP) tasks, such as named entity recognition. However, the success of NNs remains dependent on the availability of large labelled datasets, which is a significant hurdle in many important applications. One such case are electronic health records (EHRs), which are arguably the largest source of medical data, most of which lies hidden in natural text [4,5]. Data access is difficult due to data privacy concerns, and therefore annotated datasets are scarce. With scarce data, NNs will likely not be able to extract this hidden information with practical accuracy. In our study, we develop an approach that solves these problems for named entity recognition, obtaining 94.6 F1 score in I2B2 2009 Medical Extraction Challenge [6], 4.3 above the architecture that won the competition. Beyond the official I2B2 challenge, we further achieve 82.4 F1 on extracting relationships between medical terms. To reach this state-of-the-art accuracy, our approach applies transfer learning to leverage on datasets annotated for other I2B2 tasks, and designs and trains embeddings that specially benefit from such transfer.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, 8 table

Detailed and GlobalAnalysis of a Remedial Course's Impact on Incoming Students' Marks

Engineering incoming students are facing great difficulties to overcome first course subjects. To tackle that situation and increase the students’ success a Remedial course in Mathematics was offered to Informatics Engineering freshmen. This study presents a statistical analysis of their results comparing the marks obtained by those joining the course (studio group) versus those who did not participate (control group). ANOVA tests are performed over the students’ marks averages as well as over each subject students marks. These tests show statistically significant differences between both groups, with the studio group consistently outperforming the control group at 99% confidence level in most cases and at more than 92% confidence level in every case

Carving out new business models in a small company through contextual ambidexterity: the case of a sustainable company

Business model innovation (BMI) and organizational ambidexterity have been pointed out as mechanisms for companies achieving sustainability. However, especially considering small and medium enterprises (SMEs), there is a lack of studies demonstrating how to combine these mechanisms. Tackling such a gap, this study seeks to understand how SMEs can ambidextrously manage BMI. Our aim is to provide a practical artifact, accessible to SMEs, to operationalize BMI through organizational ambidexterity. To this end, we conducted our study under the design science research to, first, build an artifact for operationalizing contextual ambidexterity for business model innovation. Then, we used an in-depth case study with a vegan fashion small e-commerce to evaluate the practical outcomes of the artifact. Our findings show that the company improves its business model while, at the same time, designs a new business model and monetizes it. Thus, our approach was able to take the first steps in the direction of operationalizing contextual ambidexterity for business model innovation in small and medium enterprises, democratizing the concept. We contribute to theory by connecting different literature strands and to practice by creating an artifact to assist managemen

El papel de los medios de comunicación en la campaña electoral

Los medios de comunicación desempeñan un papel fundamental en el funcionamiento del sistema democrático, especialmente durante la campaña electoral, proporcionando la información necesaria para que los ciudadanos ejerzan su derecho al voto de forma libre y racional. Algo que no escapa a los partidos políticos, que encuentran en los medios, sobre todo en la televisión, el cauce idóneo para hacer llegar a los ciudadanos su mensaje y dar a conocer a sus líderes. El Estado, en este punto, tiene que garantizar la igualdad de oportunidades de todas las formaciones que concurren a las elecciones, imponiendo la neutralidad y el respeto al pluralismo político en la información electoral. Este artículo analiza, desde un punto de vista crítico, las leyes que regulan en nuestro país el acceso de los partidos a los medios (prohibición de contratar publicidad electoral, espacios gratuitos, etc.). Una regulación que, hasta la fecha, se ha basado más en la idea de la propaganda que en la de la confrontación política entre las distintas opciones. Por ello se reclama la fórmula del debate electoral como la mejor vía para que los ciudadanos conozcan las diferentes propuestas políticas y decidan mejor su voto.Media play an essential role in the democratic system, especially during electoral campaign, because they provide citizens the indispensable information to perform the right to vote in a rational and really free way. Political parties know that, so they consider media (television above all) as the best means to communicate citizens their message and introduce their leaders. State must act in order to guarantee equal opportunities to political groups that are present at elections, and to survey neutrality and the respect of political pluralism in elections information. This article analyses, since a critical point of view, statutes that regulate political parties’ access to media (interdiction of electoral publicity, electoral TV free times, etc.) in our country. This is a regulation that prefers propaganda to controversy between political leaders. Nevertheless we consider electoral debates are the best TV program for electorate to know several political proposals and decide their vote

Factores de riesgo cardiovascular en adolescentes. Enfermería: promoción y prevención

Introducción.Las enfermedades cardiovasculares (ECV) suponen la primera causa de muerte tanto a nivel mundial como en España, y constituyen un gran gasto en la economía. Las ECV más comunes son la cardiopatía coronaria y el accidente cerebrovascular. Los factores de riesgo cardiovascular (FRCV) pueden clasificarse en no modificables y modificables. Las estrategias de promoción y prevención cardiovascular son responsabilidad de los profesionales de la salud, especialmente de enfermería, y deben ser aplicadas lo antes posible ya que los FRCV se inician en edades tempranas. Objetivos. Evidenciar la importancia de la actuación de enfermería ante los factores de riesgo en el adolescente, describir los factores de riesgo cardiovascular modificables que afectan a los adolescentes y analizar los cuidados de enfermería necesarios en la prevención de estos. Metodología. Revisión bibliográfica en la que se utilizaron las bases de datos: Pubmed, Biblioteca Virtual de Salud, IBECS, LILACS, Scielo, MEDES y Dialnet, seleccionándose 25 artículos. Resultados.Los estudios reflejan los diferentes métodos de abordaje en la promoción de estilos de vida saludables y en la prevención de los factores de riesgo cardiovascular, y la efectividad de sus intervenciones en la población adolescente.Discusión.Las medidas de promoción y prevención de enfermedades cardiovasculares deberían ir dirigidas al fomento de estilo de vida saludables en los adolescentes.Conclusiones. La enfermería tiene un papel fundamental en la mejora de la salud adolescente con las estrategias de promoción y prevención cardíacaGrado en Enfermerí

The shifting Scottish diaspora: images of home in Alistair MacLeod's "No Great Mischief"

This article aims to explore some of the controversial aspects that come up when dealing with the Scottish diaspora. The ambiguous position of the country as opposed to England, as well as the history of imperialism that is to be found in its background are some of the elements that complicate and question its very existence. No Great Mischief, by Alistair MacLeod, is a novel set in Nova Scotia, Canada, whose characters constantly turn to the land of their ancestors, Scotland, in order to find connections and give meaning to their present lives. This article discusses the importance of these acts of re-construction, as well as the relevance of the other ‘homeland’, Cape Breton, for the characters of this novel and for the elusive concept of the Scottish diaspora.El objetivo de este artículo es explorar algunos de los aspectos controvertidos que surgen a la hora de tratar con la diáspora escocesa. La posición ambigua del país en relación con Inglaterra, así como la historia de imperialismo que lo acompaña son algunos de los elementos que complican y cuestionan su existencia. No Great Mischief de Alistair MacLeod, es una novela situada en Nueva Escocia, Canadá, cuyos personajes recurren continuamente a la tierra de sus ancestros, Escocia, para encontrar conexiones y otorgar sentido a sus vidas presentes. Este artículo discute la importancia de estos actos de reconstrucción, y la relevancia de otro ‘hogar’, Cabo Bretón, para los personajes de esta novela y para el esquivo concepto de la diáspora escocesa