Technological University of Panama

Lianas are key components of tropical forests, particularly at sites with more severe dry seasons. In contrast, trees are more abundant and speciose in wetter areas. The seasonal growth advantage (SGA) hypothesis postulates that such contrasting distributions are produced by higher liana growth relative to trees during seasonal droughts. The SGA has been investigated for larger size classes (e.g., ≥5 cm diameter at 1.3 m, dbh), but rarely for seedlings. Using eight annual censuses of >12,000 seedlings of 483 tree and liana species conducted at eight 1‐ha plots spanning a strong rainfall gradient in central Panama, we evaluated whether liana seedlings had higher growth and/or survival rates than tree seedlings at sites with stronger droughts. We also tested whether an extreme El Niño drought during the study period had a more negative effect on tree compared to liana seedlings. The absolute density of liana seedlings was similar across the rainfall gradient, ranging from 0.32 individuals/m² (0.20–0.49, 95% credible interval [CI]) at the driest end of the gradient and 0.27 individuals/m² (0.13–0.51 95% CI) at the wettest end of the gradient. The relative density of liana seedlings compared to tree seedlings was higher at sites with stronger dry seasons (0.27, 0.21–0.33, 95% CI), compared to wetter sites (0.12, 0.04–0.20 95% CI), due to lower tree seedling densities at drier sites. However, liana seedlings did not grow or survive better than tree seedlings in drier sites compared to wetter sites. Tree seedlings were more negatively impacted in terms of mortality by the extreme El Niño drought than liana seedlings, with an increase in annual mortality rate of 0.013 (0.003–0.025 95% CI) compared to lianas of −0.009 (−0.028 to 0.008 95% CI), but not growth. Our results indicate that lianas do not have a SGA over trees at the seedling stage. Instead, higher survival of liana versus tree seedlings during severe droughts or differences in liana versus tree fecundity or germination across the rainfall gradient likely explain why liana seedlings have higher relative densities at drier sites.

AutismAR Discovery focuses on the pre-development and validation of an augmented reality application aimed at supporting the education of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study utilized a prototype storyboard evaluation and the AttrakDiff survey with a sample of students studying special education at the university from a Panamanian university and experts in psychology, social work, and computer science. The study results demonstrate the importance of assistive technology in improving the quality of life for individuals with cognitive disabilities and promoting educational inclusion. The study found that immersive and proactive educational environments are significant for children with ASD, and that the use of augmented reality technology can enhance their learning experience. The findings of this study support the use of assistive technology to enhance the education of children with ASD. Therefore, future work is planned to conduct additional testing with a more diverse sample and to implement improvements based on the findings of this study to further enhance the application and its impact on the community.

Natural products (NPs) are secondary metabolites of natural origin with broad applications across various human activities, particularly the discovery of bioactive compounds. Structural elucidation of new NPs entails significant cost and effort. On the other hand, the dereplication of known compounds is crucial for the early exclusion of irrelevant compounds in contemporary pharmaceutical research. NAPROC-13 stands out as a publicly accessible database, providing structural and 13C NMR spectroscopic information for over 25 000 compounds, rendering it a pivotal resource in natural product (NP) research, favoring open science. This study seeks to quantitatively analyze the chemical content, structural diversity, and chemical space coverage of NPs within NAPROC-13, compared to FDA-approved drugs and a very diverse subset of NPs, UNPD-A. Findings indicated that NPs in NAPROC-13 exhibit properties comparable to those in UNPD-A, albeit showcasing a notably diverse array of structural content, scaffolds, ring systems of pharmaceutical interest, and molecular fragments. NAPROC-13 covers a specific region of the chemical multiverse (a generalization of the chemical space from different chemical representations) regarding physicochemical properties and a region as broad as UNPD-A in terms of the structural features represented by fingerprints.

Natural products (NPs) are secondary metabolites of natural origin with broad applications across various human activities, particularly discovering bioactive compounds. Structural elucidation of new NPs entails significant cost and effort. On the other hand, the dereplication of known compounds is crucial for the early exclusion of irrelevant compounds in contemporary pharmaceutical research. NAPROC-13 stands out as a publicly accessible database, providing structural and 13C NMR spectroscopic information for over 25,000 compounds, rendering it a pivotal resource in natural product (NP) research, favoring open science. This study seeks to quantitatively analyze the chemical content, structural diversity, and chemical space coverage of NPs within NAPROC-13, compared to FDA-approved drugs and a very diverse subset of NPs, UNPD-A. Findings indicated that NPs in NAPROC-13 exhibit comparable properties to those in UNPD-A, albeit showcasing a notably diverse array of structural content, scaffolds, ring systems of pharmaceutical interest, and molecular fragments. NAPROC-13 covers a specific region of the chemical multiverse (a generalization of the chemical space from different chemical representations) regarding physicochemical properties and a region as broad as UNPD-A in terms of structural features represented by fingerprints.

Los suelos expansivos son característicos de regiones tropicales, presentando grandes cambios volumétricos cuando su contenido de agua varía; estos cambios suelen presentar problemas estructurales en las cimentaciones provocados directamente por el comportamiento del material sobre el cual han sido construidas. Para controlar la expansión en suelos se emplean materiales cementantes, como el carbonato de calcio (CaCO3), que es un mineral que se encuentra en muchas partes del planeta Los exoesqueletos de animales marinos, residuos de actividades industriales como la pesca y la extracción de arena marina, que pudieran reutilizarse como una fuente rica en CaCO3. El objetivo de este estudio es evaluar la viabilidad para la estabilización de suelos expansivos en Panamá, a través de la compactación controlada y la adición de estabilizantes como la concha marina y el cemento, y así determinar la proporción óptima en el suelo expansivo del estudio, atendiendo al ODS 12 “Producción y consumo responsable”. Se caracterizó el suelo expansivo, la composición química del suelo y de la concha de mar, y se determinó el esfuerzo máximo a soportar a través del ensayo de la compresión no confinada del suelo expansivo con las adiciones realizadas, para determinar la mezcla y proporción óptima de estabilización. La mezcla de cemento/concha marina al 35 % obtuvo los mejores resultados, esto muestra viabilidad para el empleo de los residuos de concha marina como material cementante para la estabilización de suelos expansivos en Panamá.

The sensitivity of a gold-silver bilayer system for gas detection was investigated using angle-fixed reflectance measurements and numerical calculations based on the transfer-matrix method. Two configurations of bilayer systems were analyzed: gold on silver and silver on gold. According to calculations, the best sensitivity values were achieved with a total thickness of approximately 55 nm for the gold on silver system and approximately 65 nm for the silver on gold system. These calculations were supported by experimental results in a Kretschmann configuration for ethanol gas sensing. The bilayer systems showed a huge advantage compared to the widely used single gold thin film; however, special attention should be paid to the silver on gold configuration, as corrosion plays an important role in decreasing sensitivity.

Introduction This work presents an unsupervised learning-based methodology to identify and count unique manatees using underwater vocalization recordings. Methods The proposed approach uses Scattering Wavelet Transform (SWT) to represent individual manatee vocalizations. A Manifold Learning approach, known as PacMAP, is employed for dimensionality reduction. A density-based algorithm, known as Hierarchical Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (HDBSCAN), is used to count and identify clusters of individual manatee vocalizations. The proposed methodology is compared with a previous method developed by our group, based on classical clustering methods (K-Means and Hierarchical clustering) using Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT)-based spectrograms for representing vocalizations. The performance of both approaches is contrasted by using a novel vocalization data set consisting of 23 temporally captured Greater Caribbean manatees from San San River, Bocas del Toro, in western Panama as input. Results The proposed methodology reaches a mean percentage of error of the number of individuals (i.e., number of clusters) estimation of 14.05% and success of correctly grouping a manatee in a cluster of 83.75%. Discussion Thus having a better performances than our previous analysis methodology, for the same data set. The value of this work lies in providing a way to estimate the manatee population while only relying on underwater bioacoustics.

This study investigates the quality of the over-the-counter medicines recommended by commercial general purpose artificial intelligence (AI) platforms by analyzing the relationship between two categorical data. 139 tests were performed using publicly available over the counter medication database from US FDA and two widely available commercially available general purpose AI platforms. A chi-square analysis was conducted to examine the relationships. Results indicated that there is a statistically significant difference between the quality of over-the-counter medication recommendations from the FDA Database-based system and those recommended by commercially available generative AI systems with chi-square statistic 0.1208, the p-value of .728145, not significant at p < .01 for one AI system and the chi-square statistic = 0.9988, the p-value of .317613, not significant at p < .01 for second AI system. These results indicate that recommendations made by widely available generative AI platforms are not suitable for medical advice. Additionally, the study found that there is no statistically significant difference between the quality of over-the-counter medication recommendations from two commercially available generative AI systems with the chi-square statistic = 61.4366, the p-value of < 0.00001, significant at p < .01. This result suggests that the recommendations made by these generative AI systems are consistently inaccurate. These findings highlight the need for the development of specialized generative AI systems with the involvement of domain experts, to ensure accuracy and reliability for providing the OTC medication recommendations. Table of Contents

A theoretical perspective on grandiose narcissism suggests four forms of it (sanctity, admiration, heroism, rivalry) and states that these forms conduce to different ways of thinking and acting. Guided by this perspective, we examined in a multinational and multicultural study (61 countries; N = 15,039) how narcissism forms are linked to cognitions and behaviors prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As expected, differences in cognitions and behaviors across narcissism forms emerged. For example, higher narcissistic rivalry predicted lower likelihood of enactment of COVID-19 prevention behaviors, but higher narcissistic sanctity predicted higher likelihood of enactment of COVID-19 prevention behaviors. Further, whereas the heroism, admiration, and rivalry narcissism forms acted in a typically antisocial manner, with high narcissism predicting greater endorsement of unfounded health beliefs, the sanctity form acted in a prosocial manner, with higher narcissism being linked to lower endorsement of unfounded COVID-19 health beliefs. Thus, the findings (a) support the idea of four narcissism forms acting differently, and (b) show that these differences reflect a double-edged sword, sometimes linking to an anti-social orientation, and sometimes linking to a pro-social orientation.

Recently, a novel method for the growth inhibition of malaria parasites using microwaves was proposed. However, the apparatuses used to demonstrate this method are high-cost and immovable, hindering the progression in this field of research, which is still in its early stages. This paper presents the redesign, construction, and validation of an equivalent system, converting it into a portable and low-cost system, capable of replacing the existing one. The proposed system is mainly composed of an RF generator (MAX2870), an RF amplifier (SKYWORKS 66292-11) and a graphical user interface. Likewise, the RF applicator proposed by the original study was redesigned , resulting in a five-fold improvement in return loss. The obtained results indicate that the proposed system achieves 90% parasite growth inhibition, matching the performance of its counterpart at less than 1% of its cost. These results represent a breakthrough for the creation of smaller, enhanced devices that open new possibilities for an alternative treatment to combat this devastating disease.

Assessing within-species variation in response to drought is crucial for predicting species’ responses to climate change and informing restoration and conservation efforts, yet experimental data are lacking for the vast majority of tropical tree species. We assessed intraspecific variation in response to water availability across a strong rainfall gradient for 16 tropical tree species using reciprocal transplant and common garden field experiments, along with measurements of gene flow and key functional traits linked to drought resistance. Although drought resistance varies widely among species in these forests, we found little evidence for within-species variation in drought resistance. For the majority of functional traits measured, we detected no significant intraspecific variation. The few traits that did vary significantly between drier and wetter origins of the same species all showed relationships opposite to expectations based on drought stress. Furthermore, seedlings of the same species originating from drier and wetter sites performed equally well under drought conditions in the common garden experiment and at the driest transplant site. However, contrary to expectation, wetter-origin seedlings survived better than drier-origin seedlings under wetter conditions in both the reciprocal transplant and common garden experiment, potentially due to lower insect herbivory. Our study provides the most comprehensive picture to date of intraspecific variation in tropical tree species’ responses to water availability. Our findings suggest that while drought plays an important role in shaping species composition across moist tropical forests, its influence on within-species variation is limited.

This study addresses the emissions from mobile sources in a busy avenue. Latest mobile emission inventories estimated pollutants based on fuel sales activities in the country. While this is an approved methodology, it does not consider the characteristics of vehicles and their emissions control systems. Applying the International Vehicle Emissions (IVE) model involves low costs, the vehicle fleet’s technology features, and the study region’s environmental parameters. The IVE model allows a better understanding of how vehicle technology impacts air quality. This study aims to generate information about vehicle emissions in Panama using a model that considers factors like vehicle technology, driving patterns, and local conditions, all of which influence air pollution in the region. The focuses are on passenger vehicles, the most common in the country, particularly in one of the densest districts. Carbon monoxide (CO), sulfates (SOx), nitrogen oxide (NO, and particulate matter (PMx) emissions were estimated with the IVE model, the first one stood out, represented 98% (6479.82 g/km) of the air pollutants emitted into the atmosphere by these four gases. Finally, it is established that the combination of emission control technologies and vehicle features is what will determine its emission reduction efficiency. Only in diesel vehicles, an increase in PMx emissions was identified.

The development of bio-insultation materials has attracted increasing attention in building energy-saving fields. In tropical and hot–humid climates, building envelope insulation is important for an energy efficient and comfortable indoor environment. In this study, several experiments were carried out on a bio-insulation material, which was prepared by using rice husk as a raw material. Square rice husk-based insultation panels were developed, considering the ASTM C-177 dimensions, to perform thermal conductivity coefficient tests. The thermal conductivity coefficient obtained was 0.073 W/(m K), which is in the range of conventional thermal insulators. In a second phase of this study, two experimental enclosures (chambers) were constructed, one with rice husk-based insulation panels and the second one without this insulation. The measures of the temperatures and thermal flows through the chambers were obtained with an electronic module based on the ARDUINO platform. This module consisted of three DS18B20 temperature sensors and four Peltier plates. Daily temperature and heat flux data were collected for the two chambers during the dry season in Panama, specifically between April and May. In the experimental chamber that did not have rice husk panel insulation on the roof, a flow of up to 28.18 W/m2 was observed, while in the chamber that did have rice husk panels, the presence of a flow toward the interior was rarely observed. The rice husk-based insulation panels showed comparable performance with conventional insulators, as a sustainable solution that takes advantage of a local resource to improve thermal comfort and the reduction of the environmental impact.