Politécnico Grancolombiano

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a prevalent neurodegenerative disorder, presents significant challenges in drug development due to its multifactorial nature and complex pathophysiology. The AlzyFinder Platform, introduced in this study, addresses these challenges by providing a comprehensive, free web-based tool for parallel ligand-based virtual screening and network pharmacology, specifically targeting over 85 key proteins implicated in AD. This innovative approach is designed to enhance the identification and analysis of potential multitarget ligands, thereby accelerating the development of effective therapeutic strategies against AD. AlzyFinder Platform incorporates machine learning models to facilitate the ligand-based virtual screening process. As the first open-access platform of its kind, AlzyFinder stands as a valuable resource for the AD research community, available at http://www.alzyfinder-platform.udec.cl with supporting data and scripts accessible via GitHub https://github.com/ramirezlab/AlzyFinder.

Cities find internationalization not only as an opportunity but as a necessity for their survival in global competitive environments. This study identifies stakeholder participation as a critical element in co-creating a city brand, recognizing the importance of their involvement in the branding process. Implementing a qualitative design, including discussion groups and semi-structured interviews, this research captured the perspectives of stakeholders in Medellín, exploring foundational pillars for the city competitiveness. As a result of this research, a novel model is presented for internationalization of cities, incorporating stakeholder perspectives that highlighted key areas such as tourism, exports, cooperation, talent attraction, and foreign direct investment. Our findings offer new insights into the role of stakeholder participation in city branding and competitiveness on a global scale, revealing an optimistic outlook, emphasizing innovation, and public–private partnerships as crucial drivers. The study identifies strengths and challenges, providing insights for developing effective internationalization strategies.

Suicide is one of the leading death causes worldwide, mainly among young adults, and Colombia has experienced an increase during the XXI century. The suicide impact has diverged between age groups and locations in Co-lombia, where young adults have taken higher incidences than the other age groups. The COVID-19 lockdown induced changes in mental health, affect-ing the previous suicide trends in the country. We conducted a spatiotemporal analysis of suicide attempts in Colombia per age group, adopting Bayesian models that represent 85,526 individual records in 1,121 municipalities from 2018 to 2020 using R-INLA. We found that Colombia exhibited an increase in suicide-attempt incidence from 2018 to 2019, and suddenly, the incidence fell in the first semester of 2020. The fixed effect of the models evidenced the highest risk in overall municipalities per trimester in the age group between 15-19 years old. The spatial random effect per model evidenced municipalities with the highest risk in the age groups between 10 to 59 years, mainly in the states in the Andean region of Colombia, and other states such as Putumayo, Vaupés, Arauca, Córdoba, Amazonas, and Meta. The temporal random effect evidenced a decay in suicide trends from the fourth trimester of 2019 to 2020, except in the age group > 59 years old. Geographically, our study pinpoint-ed specific regions in Colombia, particularly in the central, southwest, and southeast areas, where the incidence of suicide attempts exceeded 100 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The nuanced breakdown of incidence across different age groups further underscores the importance of tailoring preventive strate-gies based on age-specific and regional risk factors

Obtaining value-added products from renewable resources is limited by the lack of specific operating conditions optimized for the physico-chemical characteristics of the biomass and the desired end product. A mathematical model and statistical optimization were developed for the production of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) by anaerobic digestion of municipal sewage sludge. The experimental tests were carried out in triplicate and investigated a wide range of conditions: pH 9.5, 10.5, and 11.5; temperatures 25 °C, 35 °C, 45 °C, and 55 °C; primary sludge with organic loading (OL) of 10 and 14 g VS (volatile solids); and digested sludge with 4 and 6 g VS. Subsequently, a statistical search was performed to obtain optimal production conditions, then a statistical model of VFA production was developed and the optimal conditions were validated at pilot plant scale. The maximum VFA concentration predicted was 6975 mg COD (chemical oxygen demand)/L using primary sludge at 25 °C, initial OL of 14 g VS, and pH 10.5. The obtained third-degree model (r² = 0.83) is a powerful tool for bioprocess scale-up, offering a promising avenue for sustainable waste management and biorefinery development.

En este artículo, se aborda el diagnóstico empresarial a través de un estudio de caso centrado en Bioeko. El contexto del problema se centra en la necesidad de comprender los factores que afectan al logro de los objetivos estratégicos de una organización. El objetivo del artículo es realizar un análisis exhaustivo de Bioeko, utilizando una herramienta de diagnóstico organizacional. La metodología adoptada se basó en un enfoque descriptivo e inductivo respaldado por un análisis cualitativo. Se desarrolló una herramienta de diagnóstico organizacional en Excel que permite evaluar la organización en cinco áreas clave: estrategia, finanzas, marketing, operaciones y gestión de recursos humanos. Esta herramienta se complementa con cuestionarios específicos automáticos y se basa en diversas dimensiones de análisis para evaluar y mejorar áreas clave de la empresa, incluyendo la situación actual, previsiones, diagnóstico general y resultados. El estudio reveló que, a pesar de contar con fortalezas en la gestión del capital humano, Bioeko necesita mejorar su coordinación, marketing y administración financiera para impulsar su competitividad. En conclusión, se sostiene que la implementación de herramientas de diagnóstico impulsará mejoras constantes en las Mipymes, fomentando la innovación y el aprendizaje a través de un entorno laboral colaborativo. Estos esfuerzos son fundamentales para el crecimiento y el éxito sostenible de las pequeñas y medianas empresas.

The agricultural sector of Colombia supports the national economy and food security due to the rich lands for cultivation. Although Colombia has a vast hydrological basin, climate change can impact agricultural productivity, generating economic and social adverse effects. For this, we evaluated the impact of some environmental variables on the production of the most sold crops using production, climatic, and hydrological data of the 1121 municipalities from 2007 to 2020. We modeled the production of coffee, rice, palm oil, sugarcane, and corn, adopting a Bayesian spatio-temporal model that involved a set of environmental variables: average temperature, minimum temperature, maximum temperature, evapotranspiration, precipitation, runoff, soil moisture, vapor pressure, radiation, and wind speed. We found that increases in the average temperatures can affect coffee (-0.2% per °C), rice (-3.76% per °C), and sugarcane (-0.19% per °C) production, meanwhile, these increases can boost palm oil (+2.55% per °C) and corn (+1.28% per °C) production in Colombia. This statement implies that the agricultural sector needs to substitute land use, promoting the production of palm oil and corn. Although our results did not find a significant effect of hydrological variables in any crop, suggesting that the abundance of water in Colombia might balance the impact of these variables. The increases in vapor pressure impact all the crops negatively (between -11.2% to -0.43% per kPa), except rice, evidencing that dry air conditions affect agricultural production. Colombia must manage the production location of the traditional products and implement agro-industrial technologies to avoid the climate change impact on crops.

The Covid-19 pandemic generated uncertainty among consumers, a slowdown in consumption and an increase of the added saving at world level, the microeconomic evidence showed a tendency towards dissaving and growing consumption. These variations activate questioning about the consequences of confinement in intertemporal consumption, at the same time they allow to provide new empirical evidence about life-cycle models in their standard or neoclassical and behavioral versions. The purpose of this work was to experimentally evaluate the intertemporal consumption patterns from the postulates of both life cycle models. To this end, an experimental simulation exercise of online purchases of commodities was carried out with the participation of 210 consumers who were subjected to treatments that included a baseline, income increase scenarios and no-income withdrawal scenarios. The results verified the existence of consistent responses with the behavioral model in 85% of the cases and with the standard model for the remaining 15%; that is, the tendencies to smooth consumption and increase savings were in the minority in the group evaluated and the confinement context did not translate into more self-controlled intertemporal consumption behaviors.

En el ámbito del comercio minorista, el análisis del valor percibido en el proceso de compra ha sido objeto de especial interés por enfocarse en la percepción de beneficios que van más allá del producto en sí. Ante tal interés, se realizó una exhaustiva revisión bibliográfica sobre su concepto y componentes aplicado a establecimientos minoristas. La metodología es cuantitativa y transversal, con un análisis descriptivo y explicativo a través de modelos de ecuaciones estructurales para analizar el efecto de las dimensiones del valor percibido en la variable dependiente de la intención de compra. Se aplicaron encuestas a 390 a clientes habituales de comercios minoristas en Bogotá. Los resultados revelaron que el valor funcional tiene un efecto positivo en la intención de compra; y existe una relación entre el valor funcional y el valor simbólico de la compra. Se discuten las implicaciones de la gestión en el ámbito del marketing, centrándose en el valor funcional de la compra. Se sugieren acciones relacionadas con la calidad, la comunicación, la capacitación de los empleados y el servicio al cliente. Estos hallazgos contribuyen a la literatura sobre el comportamiento del consumidor en el contexto del consumo, al comparar el valor funcional y el valor simbólico.

Introduction: The Short Health Anxiety Inventory is a commonly used tool for assessing health anxiety, but its psychometric properties and internal structure have not been examined in a Latin American Spanish-speaking population. This study aimed to establish the psychometric properties among Colombian university students. Method: The goodness of fit of four latent structure models of the Short Health Anxiety Inventory was tested using confirmatory factor analysis in a sample of 1004 Colombian university students. Results: The results show that the original model's structure does not fit well (CFI = .808; RMSEA = .074), and the reliability was .796 and .703 for the original two variables. Conclusions: The findings do not support the utilization of the Colombian version of the Short Health Anxiety Inventory by researchers and clinicians among Colombian university students.

The Covid-19 pandemic led to a process of social isolation, but this does not appear to have applied to criminal organisations in Colombia. On the contrary, they had opportunities to strengthen and demonstrate capacities to coexist with the state. So, how were shared sovereignties and criminal governances configured during Covid-19 in Colombia? Through an ethnography of digital narratives and the construction of a model of governance types, we found that the political model of shared sovereignty and criminal governance was strengthened in the context of the pandemic, allowing legal and illegal actors to accept a mutually beneficial –but painful– draw, to control their areas of social influence and territorial control.

El uso de TikTok en las campañas políticas se ha convertido en una tendencia local y global, porque abarata la financiación de candidatos y posibilita explorar formatos multimediales. En esta dirección, el objetivo del artículo es analizar el uso de esta red social en las elecciones regionales de Colombia durante el año 2023, teniendo como hipótesis que, independiente del contexto geográfico, TikTok incidió en la elección de los candidatos ganadores y con ello valida la postura teórica de las leyes de la interfaz. La metodología toma como corpus el número de seguidores y “tiktoks” realizados por los dos candidatos con mayor votación en cada uno de los 32 departamentos y capitales de Colombia. El método integra dos estrategias: un análisis descriptivo de redes sociales que evidencia los casos en los que el candidato ganador tenía más seguidores o piezas comunicativas en TikTok, y un análisis de correlación canónica que establece la relación entre la utilización de la red social y las zonas geográficas del país. La discusión sugiere que TikTok se ha convertido en una herramienta fundamental para las campañas políticas que trasciende el territorio y que esta tendencia se mantendrá en ascenso, debido a la singularidad de su algoritmo y diversidad de ofertas para la interacción de usuarios. El artículo aporta a la literatura de campañas electorales, interfaz de TikTok e influencia en contextos territoriales. Por último, se propone una agenda de investigación que profundice en las transformaciones de este fenómeno para la cultura “pop-lítica” y las emociones sociales.

// --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a postprint version. In case you would like to have the published version, please feel free to request it to the first author (cmartinezhernandez@ucm.es) . . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- // According to the eco-social education paradigm, landscape plays a key role as an identity object of study in the interaction between nature and society. The study seeks to assess a practical experience conducted among trainee teachers consisting in the systematized analysis of local and foreign degraded landscapes in Spain and Colombia, based on environmental, sustainability and global-citizenship literacies-guarantors of eco-social education. A mirror class methodology was implemented among 127 Spanish and Colombian trainee teachers. It comprised an online videocall exchange between different teaching groups. A quasi-experimental research methodology was followed, based on the didactic and statistical analysis of the trainee teachers' reports and a validated questionnaire. The findings reveal a global didactic acquisition of 2.9 points on a 4-scale evaluation range. The learning was higher in didactic tasks related to the landscape analysis and lower in comparative local-global analysis tasks. A statistically significant learning development of +0.8 points was found. The results suggest that the study of local landscapes captures interest and mirror classes easily bring distant realities closer, thus improving the eco-social knowledge and the feeling of an eco-social responsibility for global sustainability. Moreover, the experience in trainee teachers assures a didactic transfer to the wider population.

Currently, there is concern about the effects of socially and environmentally unsustainable production and all the harmful impacts worldwide. It is why Latin America is strategic in addressing these issues, considering its capacity to generate added value based on biological resources. The first section of this document addresses the characterization of the environment in which agribusinesses are immersed from the VUCA perspective, that is, volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environments. The second section reviews and groups some definitions of green businesses and proposes how innovation in this subsector can stand out and emerge in these turbulent scenarios through green innovation. The third section highlights some successful Colombian green businesses and then proceeds in the following section to reference some barriers and tools for green innovation found in the literature and how the Colombian government promotes these ventures.

Para las mujeres latinoamericanas, la inequidad y exclusión en el acceso al mercado laboral ha permitido que el narcotráfico se convierta en un proveedor ilegal, pero legítimo, de empleo. El objetivo del artículo es identificar la incidencia de los roles femeninos en la economía del narcotráfico. La metodología, de enfoque cualitativo y explicativa, toma como instrumento de recolección de datos la etnografía digital para sistematizar cincuenta informes que reportan estas dinámicas laborales en Latinoamérica. Los resultados evidencian que en cinco países, a pesar de mantenerse la instrumentalización como proveedoras de servicios sexuales, los roles femeninos se han reconfigurado con trabajos profesionales y de mayor riesgo en las cadenas logísticas del negocio, aunque esto también implique que estén más expuestas que los hombres en el momento de asumir procesos penales y recibir castigos que simulen la efectividad del sistema judicial. La discusión plantea cómo el narcotráfico ha consolidado un modelo de gobernanza criminal que reproduce brechas de género, en contextos mediados por democracias precarias, permisividad de políticas económicas e institucionales, y fragilidad de sectores estatales y empresariales.

The technological advancements in port operations over the last decade have enabled the incorporation of significant elements into the supply chain, contributing to the progress of Industry 4.0. Through Big Data, the Internet of Things, and Artificial Intelligence, strides have been made in technical, operational, and procedural management for maritime ports. The literature on this subject is diverse and spans various areas of focus. This study aims to outline the principal trajectories of digital maritime transport by applying scientometrics and the ToS metaphor. Employing an exploratory methodology, a scientometric mapping was conducted based on Scopus and WoS, analyzing the most relevant scientific production by authors, countries, journals, and affiliations. Three trends are presented: Smart Ports: A Technological Necessity for the 21st Century; Greening the Digital Harbor; and Sustainable Port Management. The study concludes that the dynamics of scientific production have seen significant growth in the influence of Industry 4.0 in the maritime field, and it also evidences the applicability of technological innovations in the port sector.

El objetivo de este estudio es analizar la percepción del bienestar psicológico de los usuarios centennials de Instagram en Colombia en relación con tres influencers caracterizados por generación de este tipo de contenido: La Mafe Méndez®, Male Baquero® y Felipe Zuluaga®. El estudio se llevó a cabo mediante una investigación exploratoria para contribuir a la comprensión del bienestar psicológico por parte de los seguidores de dichos influencers. Para este fin, se consideraron siete dimensiones: estilo de vida, percepción de bienestar, propósito de vida, autoaceptación y crecimiento personal, afecto positivo y afecto negativo. La investigación se enfocó en analizar el contenido de los influencers y el mensaje que transmiten a través de diversos elementos de comunicación dentro de la red social Instagram. Además, se exploraron conceptos emergentes, con el objetivo de reconocer aquellos contenidos y prácticas que favorecen la respuesta de bienestar de los seguidores, y que son parte de la vida cotidiana del influencer.

The processing of energy by transfer and redistribution, plays a key role in the evolution of dynamical systems. At the ultrasmall and ultrafast scale of nanosystems, quantum coherence could in principle also play a role and has been reported in many pulse-driven nanosystems (e.g. quantum dots and even the microscopic Light-Harvesting Complex II (LHC-II) aggregate). Typical theoretical analyses cannot easily be scaled to describe these general N-component nanosystems; they do not treat the pulse dynamically; and they approximate memory effects. Here our aim is to shed light on what new physics might arise beyond these approximations. We adopt a purposely minimal model such that the time-dependence of the pulse is included explicitly in the Hamiltonian. This simple model generates complex dynamics: specifically, pulses of intermediate duration generate highly entangled vibronic (i.e. electronic-vibrational) states that spread multiple excitons – and hence energy – maximally within the system. Subsequent pulses can then act on such entangled states to efficiently channel subsequent energy capture. The underlying pulse-generated vibronic entanglement increases in strength and robustness as N increases.

This paper examines the Bogotá River basin in the Andes of Colombia, which is in a vulnerable state. In the medium term, it would be difficult to meet the growing demand for water due to population growth and the risk of low rainfall. Therefore, this paper aims to determine the contribution to water system sustainability by measuring the impact of demand management measures to reduce water wastage through the adoption of household water-saving devices. This is an interesting topic, as few demand management measures have been applied in the Bogotá River Basin. In this sense, a system dynamics model has been developed to simulate the urban water system and the effect on water conservation of demand management measures that promote efficient use. The results show that water-saving taps are the most efficient micro-component, achieving up to 21% of water savings per year per household, while eco-efficient washing machines allow savings of up to 17% and toilets 7%. Consequently, after years of El Niño phenomenon, delays in works to expand supply or continued growth in demand, the water system could avoid a deficit situation with the policy of installing water-saving taps in households.

La investigación tiene como objetivo determinar la relación existente entre clima organizacional y desempeño laboral de los trabajadores de la Dirección General de Intereses Marítimos de la Armada del Ecuador (DIGEIM). El estudio analiza el clima laboral bajo tres dimensiones: la comunicación interpersonal, la autonomía y la motivación laboral. Por otro lado, el desempeño laboral se estudia bajo las dimensiones de productividad laboral, eficacia y eficiencia laboral. La metodología fue correlacional. Se usaron fuentes primarias mediante la recolección de datos in situ, utilizando como instrumento la encuesta a 64 servidores públicos y aplicando un criterio de medición basado en la escala de Likert para calcular su acuerdo o desacuerdo y proceder a validarlo mediante el Alpha de Cronbach. El principal resultado condujo a establecer la relación directa entre las variables. Para el tratamiento de la información se utilizó el programa SPSS 24.

The training of non-specialists, particularly engineers, in mathematics requires designing specific didactic proposals that make the importance of mathematics evident. One approach to creating such proposals consists in analyzing the mathematics used in authentic contexts of engineering research and then effectuating a didactic transposition to mathematics teaching. To this end, in this research, we use elements of the anthropological theory of the didactic and the methodology of didactic engineering. Initially, we analyze the blind source separation method, a case of inverse modeling widely used in numerous engineering contexts (e.g., telecommunications, acoustics, geophysics, biosignal analysis). More specifically, we examine the algorithm based on the Ax=b$A\mathbf{x}=\mathbf{b}$ matrix model and its use in a signal processing context. Based on this analysis, we designed a didactic device that focuses the study on a simulated signal mixture of pure tones and implemented it in two first-year university mathematics courses in the virtual modality. This article reports the results of the students’ first approximation to mathematical modeling activity in a setting of authentic research in engineering using a blind source separation method.