An important goal for personalized diet systems is to improve nutritional quality without compromising convenience or affordability. We present an end-to-end framework that converts dietary standards into complete meals with minimal change. Using the What We Eat in America (WWEIA) intake data for 135,491 meals, we identify 34 interpretable meal archetypes that we then use to condition a generative model and a portion predictor to meet USDA nutritional targets. In comparisons within archetypes, generated meals are better at following recommended daily intake (RDI) targets by 47.0%, while remaining compositionally close to real meals. Our results show that by allowing one to three food substitutions, we were able to create meals that were 10% more nutritious, while reducing costs 19-32%, on average. By turning dietary guidelines into realistic, budget-aware meals and simple swaps, this framework can underpin clinical decision support, public-health programs, and consumer apps that deliver scalable, equitable improvements in everyday nutrition.
A partir del año 2015, aumentó considerablemente la demanda y el precio del litio debido a su rol central en la producción de baterías. América Latina posee alrededor del 60% de las reservas de litio a nivel mundial. Los yacimientos se ubican, principalmente, en la puna que comparten Chile, Bolivia, Perú y Argentina. La posibilidad de extraer litio de los salares es promocionada por gobiernos y empresas como una oportunidad irrenunciable. A su vez, la minería de litio es presentada como clave para la solución a la crisis climática, ante la necesidad de disminuir los gases de efecto invernadero y favorecer la transición energética. En oposición, la extracción de litio es considerada por las comunidades locales como perniciosa porque involucra la pérdida de grandes volúmenes de agua, en la medida en que el litio se encuentra disuelto en los salares y de que una gran cantidad de agua dulce es utilizada durante el proceso y por la contaminación química que genera. En este trabajo se abordará la construcción discursiva y argumentativa de la extracción de litio. La hipótesis general es que la extracción de litio se presenta como inevitable en tanto no hay otras alternativas posibles frente a la crisis climática, impidiendo su discusión en términos políticos.
In response to the surge of urbanization in the modern era, many organisms have undergone various changes, such as the shift of their morphological traits to face the challenges brought by this drastic environmental transformation. Rapid adaptive evolution in the morphology of urban-dwelling organisms has been documented in a broad array of taxa, such as lizards and birds, by comparing urban populations with their nonurban counterparts. However, relevant studies concerning more elusive and secretive organisms that also occur in both natural and urbanized habitats (e.g., snakes), are still lacking. Snakes lack appendages, which are often the trait of interest in other morphological studies, but factors such as head shape play a critical role in snakes, as it determines the prey size of these gape-limited predators. In this study, we apply both linear and geometric morphometric analyses to examine interpopulation morphological differences and sexual dimorphism in a small, semi-fossorial snake, Dekay’s brownsnake (Storeria dekayi). We focus on head shape in six different populations across the rural-urban gradient in New Jersey and New York, USA. We find evidence of increased morphological divergence and decreased sexual dimorphism in populations inhabiting more urbanized areas. Our study suggests the occurrence of an adaptive morphological shift in this common species in the urban environments, and lays the path for further investigation of urban adaptation in snakes and similar secretive species.
The gravity model of human mobility has successfully described the deterrence of travels with distance in urban mobility patterns. While a broad spectrum of deterrence was found across different cities, yet it is not empirically clear if movement patterns in a single city could also have a spectrum of distance exponents denoting a varying deterrence depending on the origin and destination regions in the city. By analyzing the travel data in the twelve most populated cities of the United States of America, we empirically find that the distance exponent governing the deterrence of travels significantly varies within a city depending on the traffic volumes of the origin and destination regions. Despite the diverse traffic landscape of the cities analyzed, a common pattern is observed for the distance exponents; the exponent value tends to be higher between regions with larger traffic volumes, while it tends to be lower between regions with smaller traffic volumes. This indicates that our method indeed reveals the hidden diversity of gravity laws that would be overlooked otherwise.
In the United States, from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to December 31, 2020, 341,199 deaths and more than 19,663,976 infections were recorded. Recent literature establishes that communities with poverty-related health problems, such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hypertension, are more susceptible to mortality from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Additionally, controversial public health policies implemented by the nation's political leaders have highlighted the socioeconomic inequalities of minorities. Therefore, through multivariate correlational analysis using machine learning techniques and structural equations, we measure whether social determinants are associated with increased infection and death from COVID-19 disease. The PLS least squares regression analysis allowed identifying a significant impact between social determinants and COVID-19 disease through a predictive value of R2 = .916, \b{eta} = .836, p =. 000 (t-value = 66,137) shows that for each unit of increase in social determinants, COVID-19 disease increases by 91.6%. The clustering index used for correlational analysis generated a new data set comprising three groups: C1 Republicans, C2 and C3 Democrats from California, New York, Texas, and Florida. This analysis made it possible to identify the poverty variable as the main risk factor related to the high rates of infection in Republican states and a high positive correlation between the population not insured with a medical plan and high levels of virus contagion in the states of group C3. These findings explain the argument that poverty and lack of economic security put the public or private health system at risk and calamity.
The International Astronomical Youth Camp (IAYC) is an astronomy education outreach event with more than 50 years of history and over 1,700 unique participants from 81 nationalities. The International Workshop for Astronomy e.V. (IWA) is the non-profit organization behind the IAYC, established in 1979 and based in Germany. The IAYC's unprecedented longevity in a rapidly globalizing world has meant that financial inequities decreases the reach of the camp to people from the Global South compared to Global North countries. Though nationalities represented per camp has increased steadily since its inception, the share of participants from eastern Europe and Africa has dropped, while those from western Europe and North America have increased. This note examines how camp cost, location, and leadership affects nationality diversity amongst participants, and how astronomy outreach events must reckon with funding for less privileged participants with limited access to resources.
The ongoing integration of renewable generation and distributed energy resources introduces new challenges to distribution network operation. Due to the increasing volatility and uncertainty, distribution system operators (DSOs) are seeking concepts to enable more active management and control. Flexibility markets (FMs) offer a platform for economically efficient trading of electricity flexibility between DSOs and other participants. The integration of cyber, physical and market domains of multiple participants makes FMs a system of cyber-physical systems (CPSs). While cross-domain integration sets the foundation for efficient deployment of flexibility, it introduces new physical and cyber vulnerabilities to participants. This work systematically formulates threat scenarios for the CPSs of FMs, revealing several remaining security challenges across all domains. Based on the threat scenarios, unresolved monitoring requirements for secure participation of DSOs in FMs are identified, providing the basis for future works that address these gaps with new technical concepts.
For the first time the scientific community in Latin America working at the forefront of research in high energy, cosmology and astroparticle physics (HECAP) have come together to discuss and provide scientific input towards the development of a regional strategy. The present document, the Latin American HECAP Physics Briefing Book, is the result of this ambitious bottom-up effort. This report contains the work performed by the Preparatory Group to synthesize the main contributions and discussions for each of the topical working groups. This briefing book discusses the relevant emerging projects developing in the region and considers potentially impactful future initiatives and participation of the Latin American HECAP community in international flagship projects to provide the essential input for the creation of a long-term HECAP strategy in the region.
Playing in the FIFA World Cup finals is an ambition shared by several nations. Since, besides luck and skill, the probability of qualification depends on the design of the qualifiers, the study of these competitions forms an integral part of sports analytics. The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) announced a novel qualifying format for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in July 2019. However, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the organisers to return to a more traditional structure. The present chapter analyses how this reform impacted the chances of the national teams to qualify. It is found that the probability of participating in the FIFA World Cup finals can change by more than 5 percentage points under the assumption of fixed strengths for the teams. The idea behind the original design, to divide the contestants into two distinct sets, is worth considering due to the increased competitiveness of the matches played by the strongest and the weakest teams. We recommend mitigating the sharp nonlinearity caused by the seeding policy via a probabilistic rule to the analogy of the NBA draft lottery system.
The present manuscript among its purposes, raises arguments that, with a critical approach, aim to dilute the myths that for centuries have risen above the colonization of Afro-descendant thought in the original Caribbean; where the love of divinity was used as an instrument of dominance over the Puerto Rican bonhomy of colonial Puerto Rico. It is a documentary article with bibliographic design, where the state of the art is sought to be developed on mysticism, ambiguity, and the impact that even in contemporary times generate sui generis religious practices, in which the bibliographic method was applied with a focus interpretive and documentation, as a technique used in the auscultation of the files selected for this purpose. After a deep discussion, it was possible to reflect on the socio-cultural and human encounters and disagreements, which in the formation of a Christian religious arch, took place in the Caribbean during the last 100 years; the above gave the researcher an epistemological, axiological and ontological seedbed; where they were able to germinate great diversity of ideas about it, thus flourishing different epistemic awards, with support for the development of the epoché. Finally, some conclusions could be generated that, by way of reflection, account for the great scientific interest held by spiritual consultations, diversity of cults and the influence of Eurocentrism in Central America, from the 16th and 17th centuries, where colonization was approached From thought from Christianization, phenomena arise that point to the liberation of the popular ideological.
Stephanie Lieggi, Ivo Jimenez, Jeff LeFevre
et al.
The incubator and research projects sponsored by the Center for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS, cross.ucsc.edu) at UC Santa Cruz have been very effective at promoting the professional and technical development of research software engineers. Carlos Maltzahn founded CROSS in 2015 with a generous gift of $2,000,000 from UC Santa Cruz alumnus Dr. Sage Weil and founding memberships of Toshiba America Electronic Components, SK Hynix Memory Solutions, and Micron Technology. Over the past five years, CROSS funding has enabled PhD students to not only create research software projects but also learn how to draw in new contributors and leverage established open source software communities. This position paper will present CROSS fellowships as case studies for how university-led open source projects can create a real-world, reproducible model for effectively training, funding and supporting research software engineers.
The ongoing pandemic of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan, China in the end of 2019. It has already affected more than 300,000 people, with the number of deaths nearing 13000 across the world. As it has been posing a huge threat to global public health, it is of utmost importance to identify the rate at which the disease is spreading. In this study, we propose a time series model to analyze the trend pattern of the incidence of COVID-19 outbreak. We also incorporate information on total or partial lockdown, wherever available, into the model. The model is concise in structure, and using appropriate diagnostic measures, we showed that a time-dependent quadratic trend successfully captures the incidence pattern of the disease. We also estimate the basic reproduction number across different countries, and find that it is consistent except for the United States of America. The above statistical analysis is able to shed light on understanding the trends of the outbreak, and gives insight on what epidemiological stage a region is in. This has the potential to help in prompting policies to address COVID-19 pandemic in different countries.
O presente artigo pretende construir uma leitura crítica do racismo nas relações de trabalho escravo contemporâneo pensado sob a ótica da hierarquização e a superexploração da mão-de-obra negra. A investigação trata-se com base em pesquisa bibliográfica, tendo como aporte teórico os estudos de Costa (2018), Rodrigues (2016), Fanon (1968), Oliva (2007), Harvey (2001), etc.. Temos como objetivo refletir sobre a questão racial no contexto histórico e social da reprodução do trabalho escravo na sociedade atual, bem como, problematizar suas interfaces na produção da desigualdade social, emergida com os “novos” processos de modernização em múltiplas dimensões.
Palavras-chave: Racismo. Hierarquização. Superexploração. Trabalho Escravo Contemporâneo.
The present article intends to build a critical reading of racism in the relations of contemporany slave labor thourght from the perspective of hierarchization of black labor.The investigation is based on bibliographic research, having as theoretical contribution the studies of Costa (2018), Rodrigues (2016), Fanon (1968), Oliva (2007), Harvey (2001), etc.. We ain to reflecton the racial inssue in the historical and social context of the reproduction of slave labor in today's society, as well as to problematize its interfaces in the “new” moderniztion processes in multiple dimensionis.
Keywords: Racism. Hierarchy. Overexploitation. Contemporany Slave Labor.
Le présent article entend construire une lecture critique du racisme dansles relations de travail contemporaines entre esclaves pensé dans la perspective de la hiérarchie et de la surexploitation du travail noir. L'enquête et basée sur la recherche bibliographique, ayant pour contribution thé o rique les études de Costa (2018), Rodrigues (2016), Fanon (1968), Oliva (2007), Harvey (2001), etc.. Nous cherchons à réfléchir sur la question raciale dans le contexte historique et social de la reproduction du travail esclave dans la société d'aujourd'hui, ainsi qu'á problématiser ses interfaces dans la production des inégualités sociales, qui ont émergé avec les nouveaux processus de modernisation dans de multiples dimensionis.
Mosts-clés: Racisme; Hiérarchie. Surexploitation. Travail Esclave Contemporain.
Abstract Among the traits whose relevance for plant invasions has recently been suggested are genome size (the amount of nuclear DNA) and ploidy level. So far, research on the role of genome size in invasiveness has been mostly based on indirect evidence by comparing species with different genome sizes, but how karyological traits influence competition at the intraspecific level remains unknown. We addressed these questions in a common‐garden experiment evaluating the outcome of direct intraspecific competition among 20 populations of Phragmites australis, represented by clones collected in North America and Europe, and differing in their status (native and invasive), genome size (small and large), and ploidy levels (tetraploid, hexaploid, or octoploid). Each clone was planted in competition with one of the others in all possible combinations with three replicates in 45‐L pots. Upon harvest, the identity of 21 shoots sampled per pot was revealed by flow cytometry and DNA analysis. Differences in performance were examined using relative proportions of shoots of each clone, ratios of their aboveground biomass, and relative yield total (RYT). The performance of the clones in competition primarily depended on the clone status (native vs. invasive). Measured in terms of shoot number or aboveground biomass, the strongest signal observed was that North American native clones always lost in competition to the other two groups. In addition, North American native clones were suppressed by European natives to a similar degree as by North American invasives. North American invasive clones had the largest average shoot biomass, but only by a limited, nonsignificant difference due to genome size. There was no effect of ploidy on competition. Since the North American invaders of European origin are able to outcompete the native North American clones, we suggest that their high competitiveness acts as an important driver in the early stages of their invasion.
The LAGO (Latin American Giant Observatory) observatory is an experiment that spans over Latin America in a wide range of latitudes that gives different rigidity cut offs for the enter of cosmic rays in the atmosphere. The motivation of the Observatory is to study atmospheric radiation and space weather through the measurement of the secondary emission of low energy cosmic rays at ground level using Water Cherenkov Detectors (WCD). This work presents the contributions of the LAGO collaboration to the 2019 36th ICRC.
Food insecurity is a term used to measure hunger and food deprivation of a large population. As per the 2015 statistics provided by Feeding America - one of the largest domestic hunger-relief organizations in the United States, 42.2 million Americans live in food insecure households, including 29.1 million adults and 13.1 million children. This constitutes about 13.1% of households that are food insecure. Food Banks have been developed to improve food security for the needy. We have developed a novel food distribution policy using suitable welfare and poverty indices and functions. In this work, we propose an equitable and fair distribution of donated foods as per the demands and requirements of the people, thus ensuring minimum wastage of food (perishable and non-perishable) with focus towards nutrition. We present results and analysis based on the application of the proposed policy using the information of a local food bank as a case study. The results show that the new policy performs better than the current methods in terms of population being covered and reduction of food wastage obtaining suitable levels of nutrition.
El artículo procura reconstruir las modalidades a través de las cuales algunos de los museos que funcionaban en Buenos Aires durante la primera mitad de la década de 1940 se relacionaban con su público: concretamente se tratará de precisar cuánta gente concurría a los museos de carácter histórico e indagar acerca de los motivos por los cuales lo hacía. El recorte espacio-temporal responde a la necesidad de efectuar un análisis comparativo sobre los modos de funcionamiento de cuatro museos históricos relativamente cercanos, entre los años 1938 y 1946, en momentos en los cuáles la recién instalada Comisión Nacional de Museos y de Monumentos y Lugares Históricos estuvo presidida por el historiador Ricardo Levene.